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Presiding officer of the upper house of the Australian Parliament

The president of the Senate is the presiding officer of the Australian Senate, the upper house of the Parliament of Australia. The counterpart in the lower house is the speaker of the House of Representatives. The office of the presidency of the senate was established in 1901 by section 17 of the Constitution of Australia. The primary responsibilities of the office is to oversee senate debates, determine which senators may speak, maintain order and the parliamentary code of conduct during sessions and uphold all rules and orders of the senate. The current president is Sue Lines, who was elected on 26 July 2022. The Senate elects one of its members as president at the start of each new term, or whenever the position is vacant. This is usually—though not necessarily—a member of the party or coalition that holds the most seats in the Senate. The largest party in the Senate is not always the governing party, as government is determined by the House of Representatives. The president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives may consequently be from different parties. The president of the Senate's primary task is to maintain parliamentary procedure in the chamber during legislative sessions. Unlike the speaker of the House, the president of the Senate votes as an ordinary member during general debate, and has no casting vote in the case of a tie (a casting vote would effectively give the president's state an extra vote). The president of the Senate has also various administrative and ceremonial duties, sharing responsibility for the management of Parliament House and other parliamentary facilities and services with the speaker of the House.

The president is elected by the Senate in a secret ballot. The clerk conducts the election. The presidency has always been a partisan office and the nominee of the government party has nearly always been elected—although this cannot be guaranteed since the government of the day does not necessarily have a majority in the Senate. The president is assisted by an elected deputy president. The traditional practice has been that the government nominates a senator to be elected as president, and the Opposition nominates a Senator to be deputy president. If there are no other nominations, no election is required; however, the Australian Greens in 2005 and again in 2007 put forward Senator Kerry Nettle as a rival candidate when the position of president was vacant. Neither Government nor Opposition Senators supported that candidacy.

The president's principal duty is to preside over the Senate, to maintain order in the Senate, uphold the Standing Orders (rules of procedure) and protect the rights of backbench senators. The president is assisted by the deputy president and a panel of acting deputy presidents, who usually preside during routine debates. Although the president does not have the same degree of disciplinary power as the speaker does, the Senate is not as rowdy as most Australian legislative chambers, and thus his or her disciplinary powers are seldom exercised. Unlike the speaker the president has a deliberative, but not a casting vote (in the event of an equality of votes, the motion fails). This is because the Senate is in theory a states' house, and depriving the president of a deliberative vote would have robbed one of the states or territories one of its senators' votes.

The Senate president is the chief executive of the Department of the Senate, which is one of the four parliamentary departments. The president chairs the department's budget committee and oversees its organisational structure. The president also co administers the Department of Parliament Services (DPS) with the speaker of the House of Representatives.

As with all other parliamentarians, the president of the Senate's salary is determined by the Remuneration Tribunal, an independent statutory body. As of 1 July 2019, the base salary for senators is A$211,242. The president is entitled to an additional "salary of office" comprising 75% of the base salary ($158,432), making for a total salary of $369,674 per annum and receives the various other entitlements and allowances available to senators.

The position of president of the Senate has been disproportionately held by senators representing the least populous states and territories. There have been 25 presidents of the Senate since 1901. Of these 15 have come from the least populous states (Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania) or the Australian Capital Territory, and 10 have come from the three most populous states (New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland). All Senate presidents have been members of major parties, though not necessarily the governing party. No. (Number) Image Name Party State Term start Term end 1 Sir Richard Baker   Free Trade South Australia 9 May 1901 31 December 1906 2 (Sir) Albert Gould   Free Trade /Anti Socialist New South Wales 20 February 1907 30 June 1910  Liberal 3 Harry Turley   Labor Queensland 1 July 1910 8 July 1913 4 Thomas Givens   Labor Queensland 9 July 1913 30 June 1926  National Labor  Nationalist 5 Sir John Newlands  Nationalist South Australia 1 July 1926 13 August 1929 6 Walter Kingsmill   Nationalist Western Australia 14 August 1929 30 August 1932  United Australia 7 Patrick Lynch   United Australia Western Australia 31 August 1932 30 June 1938 8 John Hayes   United Australia Tasmania 1 July 1938 30 June 1941 9 James Cunningham   Labor Western Australia 1 July 1941 4 July 1943 10 Gordon Brown   Labor Queensland 23 September 1943 19 March 1951 11 Ted Mattner   Liberal South Australia 12 June 1951 7 September 1953 12 (Sir) Alister McMullin   Liberal New South Wales 8 September 1953 30 June 1971 13 Sir Magnus Cormack   Liberal Victoria 17 August 1971 11 April 1974 14 Justin O'Byrne   Labor Tasmania 9 July 1974 11 November 1975 15 (Sir) Condor Laucke   Liberal South Australia 17 February 1976 30 June 1981 16 (Sir) Harold Young   Liberal South Australia 18 August 1981 4 February 1983 17 Doug McClelland   Labor New South Wales 21 April 1983 23 January 1987 18 Kerry Sibraa   Labor New South Wales 17 February 1987 31 January 1994 19 Michael Beahan   Labor Western Australia 1 February 1994 30 June 1996 20 Margaret Reid   Liberal ACT 20 August 1996 18 August 2002 21 Paul Calvert   Liberal Tasmania 19 August 2002 14 August 2007 22 Alan Ferguson   Liberal South Australia 14 August 2007 25 August 2008 23 John Hogg   Labor Queensland 26 August 2008 30 June 2014 24 Stephen Parry   Liberal Tasmania 7 July 2014 2 November 201725 Scott Ryan   Liberal Victoria 13 November 2017 13 October 202126 Slade Brockman   Liberal Western Australia 18 October 2021 26 July 202227 Sue Lines   Labor Western Australia 26 July 2022 Incumbent

As well as a president, the Senate also elects a deputy president, whose formal title is Deputy President and Chairman of Committees. Until 1981, the title was just Chairman of Committees; it was changed "to reflect more accurately the nature of the office in practice". The position is not provided for by the constitution, but instead by the Senate's standing orders – it was borrowed more or less directly from the colonial legislative councils. The deputy president's main tasks are to preside over committees of the whole and to serve as presiding officer when the president of the Senate is absent.