This background note details the approach taken in various Australian and overseas parliaments to codes of conduct for ministers and MPs. In 2009, for various reasons, the conduct of ministers and members of parliament has been the subject of much media attention. The Australian and United Kingdom governments have conducted major reviews of entitlements paid...

Parameswary Rasiah provides a critique of parliamentary question time. Analysing ministers’ responses to questions on the Iraq conflict, she highlights how they evade answering properly unless questions come from their own side, concluding that question time fails as a means to hold government to account.

Created in 1970, the system of Senate estimates committees was intended as a more effective means for senators to put questions to ministers and public servants about government activities. Often a thorn in the side of government, the committees have played an important role in government accountability. Yet they would never have come into existence...

Harry Evans, Clerk of the Senate, reviews the appropriations process as it relates to government spending on advertising. He suggests that appropriations are made for ends that are specified only in the vaguest terms. Consequently, little limit is applied to the purposes on which the money may be spent.

The treasurer, Peter Costello, has called for Australia to create the most ‘female-friendly environment in the world’. Marian Sawer finds, however, that Australia has just slid to its lowest place ever in the league table of women’s representation in national parliaments and a major factor has been the Liberal Party’s failure to preselect women.