Odgers' Australian Senate Practice is an Australian parliamentary authority published by the Australian Senate. The first edition was published in 1953 edited by James Rowland Odgers, then Usher of the Black Rod and Clerk of Committees and later Clerk of the Australian Senate from 1965 to 1979.[1]
Currently in its fourteenth edition, published in 2016,[2] the text is the comprehensive and authoritative guide to the procedure and practice of the Australian Senate. The equivalent guide in the Australian House of Representatives is House of Representatives Practice.
While Australian parliamentary procedure was originally based heavily on the practice in the House of Commons, over time Odgers' manual has come to be recognised as a stand-alone authority of Australian parliamentary practice. In the current edition of Odgers’, there are no references to Erskine May, virtually no references to British parliamentary procedures, and references to British law only where it has been explicitly adopted, or is likely to be of persuasive value in Australian courts.[3]