NSW New Powers to Force Witnesses to Appear Before Parliament

Parliamentary Evidence Amendment (Attendance of Witnesses) Bill 2026

Private Member's Bill

18 Mar 2026: The second house is finishing its own detailed examination of this bill, possibly in committee, before a final vote.

Legislative Council

Legislative Assembly

Assent

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Topics

custody powers legal immunity parliamentary oversight witness apprehension

Introduced by: Alister Henskens MP (LIB); Damien Tudehope MLC (LIB)

Links to official parliament websites

Official page: progress through parliament

Official page: bill text and explanatory notes

Effects of this bill

If this bill passes, it means that:

The President of the Legislative Council or the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly can issue a warrant to apprehend a person who fails to attend a parliamentary committee or chamber to give evidence without a reasonable excuse.
People acting under these warrants can take the named person into custody and hold them until they are produced to give evidence or released via a discharge order.
Individuals acting under these warrants are protected from civil or criminal liability if they perform their duties in good faith.
The President of the Legislative Council or the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly must use a specific prescribed form when issuing these warrants.
A discharge order signed and sealed by the President or Speaker provides the legal authority for officials to release a person from custody.

The Debate

What different members said when this bill was debated:

Emily Suvaal ALP

“I make some concluding remarks to my contribution to debate on the Parliamentary Evidence Amendment (Attendance of Witnesses) Bill 2026 from four weeks ago. It was a valuable contribution.”

Official source →

Mark Latham IND

“I reflect on the point the Hon. Emily Suvaal just made—at the request of the Deputy Leader of the Government to clarify matters. How else can we do things without giving the President powers? We found out in the Supreme Court that we cannot cross the line of judicial independence and judgements that they make in this matter.”

Official source →

Penny Sharpe ALP

“The Government does not support the Parliamentary Evidence Amendment (Attendance of Witnesses) Bill 2026 at this time in this form on Government business day. The bill seeks to amend the Parliamentary Evidence Act 1901 in relation to the attendance and examination of witnesses before the Houses of Parliament or a parliamentary committee.”

Official source →

Damien Tudehope LIB

“I will be very brief. I thank all members for their contributions to debate on the bill. Some members repeated arguments that were well mulled over in relation to the objections to the bill. This is a simple bill. All it does is restore to the House the powers it thought it had prior to Cullen v President of the Legislative Council of New South Wales.”

Official source →

News articles and press releases

Second Reading Speech, Parliamentary Evidence Amendment (Attendance of Witnesses) Bill 2026

The Hon. DAMIEN TUDEHOPE — 2026-02-04

Following the decision of the New South Wales Court of Appeal in Cullen v President of the Legislative Council of New South Wales last year, this House and the other place have been stripped of their power to hold the Government to account. On a technical point of law, the Legislature has been weakened, and this must be remedied. With the provisions of the Parliamentary Evidence Act relating to powers of arrest being declared invalid, we are left with no option but to rewrite the Act in accordance with the ruling of the court. The form of this bill is simple: removing the need for a judge and vesting those powers directly in the President or the Speaker. This solves the issue created by the judgement of the Court of Appeal, which is grounded in the Kable principle: essentially, that the court's impartiality and independence should not be compromised by the legislation.