VPRS 7638 Minutes and Rough Notes of the Legislative Council in Committee

These volumes record the considerations of the Legislative Council in Committee for Bills which have not been passed on their second reading.Such Bills were then placed before a Committee of the whole Council which considered each and every clause of the Bill including the preamble and schedules. More than one bill was often considered at a sitting.Each clause was considered and carried or amended. Amendments put to the Committee were recorded along with the mover's name. Details of amendments which were withdrawn or failed to be passed are included but details of the debates are not, there is merely an annotation that debate ensued. Later volumes also record the name of the Chairman, the time the amendment was moved, the names of the speakers, the time they spoke and the number of votes for and against.The outcome of the Committee's deliberations was to either report the Bill back without amendment, report it as amended or to report progress and take leave to sit again at a later set date.The handwritten record is arranged chronologically with a new page commenced for each day the Committee met. Some volumes are entitled "Rough notes in Committee of whole Council". Occasionally printed copies of the amendment from the printed Acts are pasted in, in lieu of the Chairman's record of the wording of an amendment. Printed extracts from the Orders of the Day showing that a Bill was to be considered in Committee were also pasted in.