Webcasts of select committee meetings

Later in 2013 public hearings of evidence before select committees will be webcast live on this website. This will be part of a pilot to assess how this type of service could be delivered in the future.

Webcasting of select committees is aimed at making parliament more accessible to the public, and responds to recent surveys of members of Parliament and other stakeholders which have shown a demand for such coverage.

The webcasting pilot project will be guided by the comments of the Standing Orders Committee in its recent report “Captioning proceedings of the House and webcasting select committee hearings” (see related link).

During the pilot, one select committee hearing will be webcast at a time. Webcasting will be able to occur only from certain select committee rooms, but committee rooms will continue to be allocated on the basis of committees’ needs; this will not involve any judgment about the newsworthiness of committee business. A committee intending to hear evidence in public and allocated a room with webcasting facilities will be able to choose whether those hearings are webcast.

Information about expected webcasts from select committees will be made available on this website.

Feedback will be sought from MPs and committees to assess the effectiveness of webcasting public hearings of select committees and the demand for it.

The Office of the Clerk will report to the Standing Orders Committee on the results of the pilot project.

More information on webcasts of select committee hearings will be made available on this website once the pilot is ready to begin.