Coronavirus: The virtual Parliament House stands ready to sit

Federal parliament could sit virtually in the coming months, or with even fewer MPs than those who flew back to Canberra this week.

The House of Representatives on Monday. Picture: AAP

Federal parliament could sit virtually in the coming months, or with even fewer MPs than those who flew back to Canberra this week, to pass new legislation to help Australians in the grip of the coronavirus.

While parliament is not scheduled to sit until August 11 and the May budget has been postponed to October, the Coalition and Labor have agreed the House and Senate can, if necessary, sit sooner “in a manner and form not otherwise provided in the standing orders”.

Attorney-General Christian Porter and manager of opposition business Tony Burke must agree to the emergency parliamentary sitting in the House, with the way in which members are present decided by Speaker Tony Smith.

The government’s and Labor’s respective Senate leaders, Mathias Cormann and Penny Wong, will have to agree to the upper house sitting. The rules and orders necessary to establish such a meeting would be determined by the Senate’s procedure committee.

As parliament rose on Monday after passing $85bn of coronavirus support measures for business, workers and families, Mr Burke outlined the difficulties of reconvening parliament in the pandemic.

“It is not impossible to imagine a scenario where, for the parliament to meet, we have to get here 14 days early, self-isolate, meet, go back home and then self-isolate again for another 14 days,” he said.

“The best that we can do is for us to physically meet here, like we have today, and we’ll do everything we can to form a quorum with a significant number of people, the way we have done today.

“If circumstances mean we have to look at a different manner and form, we will deal with that in a very conservative fashion and a very careful fashion but certainly with the intention of making sure that, when the Australian people need the parliament to meet, the parliament can meet.”

A government spokesman said the Coalition would ask the parliament to reconvene to pass essential legislation only when it was necessary in order to help reduce the number of people at Parliament House. “Although we can’t know what this will look like, we know we need to plan for the uncertainty to ensure parliament can do its job,” the spokesman said.

Anthony Albanese on Tuesday predicted there would be a sitting before August, even though both the Coalition and Labor had agreed to a $40bn fund that could be used by the government for further economic support in a period where the parliament does not sit.

“We will be back here before August. We’ll be back here this financial year. Because there will be a need for further stimulus and for further legislation to be carried,” the Opposition Leader said.