Whips

What is a Whip?

A whip is a Member who acts as an administrator and organiser for his or her political party in Parliament. All parties in Parliament have whips in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

What does a whip do?

Whips have duties in the Chamber, but most of their time is taken up with party activities.
In relation to the business of the House, the whips:

• work out with Members who will speak in debates and when,
• make sure that Members are present in the House for divisions and quorums,
• organise ‘pairs’ for absent Members, and
• are often appointed by the Speaker as tellers to count the votes during divisions.

Outside the Chamber, the whips are organisers for their political parties. They:

• advise and coordinate party committees,
• arrange nominations for party and parliamentary committees, and
• organise party balloting.

The origins of the office of the whip

The term ‘whip’ originated in the aristocratic English pastime of fox-hunting. The person who kept the hounds together in the pack was called the ‘whipper-in’. The expression was first used in the UK House of Commons in 1769 by politician Edmund Burke (1729-1797) to describe the way Members were lobbied by their fellow parliamentarians.