Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The honourable member for New England was very charitable and optimistic about the Prime Minister’s attitudes to the parliament. I hope that through this matter of public importance some people in government will listen to and take on board some of the criticisms. This is a time when this government is seen to be out of touch and arrogant, and its arrogance is seen very much in the way it treats the parliament.

I want to go to two aspects of the way in which this place operates. I return to a theme I have raised on many occasions, and that is the lack of ministerial statements. The honourable member for O’Connor led with his chin yesterday when he asked a question about the number of ministerial statements issued in the Hawke-Keating years compared with the number of statements issued in the Howard years. During the 13 years of the Hawke-Keating government there were 349 ministerial statements—on average, 27 a year. During the 11 years of the Howard government, there have been 100 ministerial statements—on average, nine a year. But more telling, how many ministerial statements do you think there have been this year—2006—when we have deployed troops to the Solomons, when we still have troops deployed in Iraq and when we have had discussions of great moment about matters to do with immigration and asylum seekers? There have been zero, zip, nil, none—and I think that that is outstandingly despicable. I regret that the Attorney-General is in the chamber, because he has often borne the brunt of my criticism about ministerial statements. Perhaps, because of his long service in this place, I have set the bar of his performance higher than I should have, but when he was minister for immigration and oversaw the great changes that were made in immigration policy I believe that he should have been in here more often than he was, making ministerial statements.

The final matter I want to raise is the issue of responses to committee reports. Another person I respect because of his longevity in this chamber, the member for Fadden, also raised this matter. If you look at the list of the last published government responses—one is due tomorrow; the last was published on 8 December 2005—you will see listed 74 reports that should have had their responses within the time limit, which is six months. Of those, two had been received and 72 had not been received within the time limit. In fact, only another 26 had been responded to. If you look at the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, which the honourable member for Fadden championed, you will see that the responses there are four out of five. Matters concerning Aboriginal affairs and Indigenous affairs have been raised, and a report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Affairs, tabled on 21 June 2004, Many ways forward: report of the inquiry into capacity building and service delivery in Indigenous communities, has received no response to date. These are examples of things that must be improved.

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