Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

It is certainly not my intention after those words from the member for Chifley to experiment with the ‘sin-bin’ rules in the Main Committee and to be the first example of someone excluded, so I will try and behave myself for the period that I am here. The opposition are in support of the recommendations made in the report of the Standing Committee on Procedure on sessional orders and therefore we urge the Leader of the House to attend to them as quickly as possible.

One of the good things about the Procedure Committee is that it has generally, almost without exception, proceeded on a bipartisan basis. I think that that is very good. If we cannot review the rules in a spirit of bipartisanship then what is it that we can get done in this place in a spirit of bipartisanship? I note that that bipartisanship may well be challenged in the coming period when the committee looks at the question of the standing orders for question time—question time tending to be the most troubled and partisan part of the day—but one of the things I think we need to acknowledge about the image of parliament is that, whilst a lot of good work gets done elsewhere in the parliament, whether or not we like it, the public window into this parliament is almost without exception question time. Most Australians could not summon a vision of this parliament other than a vision of question time, because that is all they see on the news. I think that that is a substantial challenge for the Procedure Committee coming up and I trust that that review will proceed expeditiously and also in a bipartisan fashion.

I note that the Procedure Committee has made it its business to go through the standing orders and seek to review them for the use of archaic terms. I think we are now at the stage where, having done that, some of them need to be reviewed for meaning and for ongoing applicability. I know that that is the sort of challenge that the Procedure Committee does set itself, and there is more work to do on the standing orders.

In terms of the specific recommendations in the report, I draw attention to the speaking times for dissent motions. As someone who is from time to time called upon to speak to a dissent motion, I think the reduced speaking times are an effective change. At the end of the day, while it is a very serious thing in the House of Representatives for a member of parliament to seek to dissent from a Speaker’s ruling, the argument you are making is a procedural argument and it ought to be capable of being fully explained fairly expeditiously. Given that a dissent motion takes precedence necessarily over any other thing that may be happening in the House, it does serve the convenience of the House to deal with that motion as quickly as possible.

I note that, in the report, the Procedure Committee has left for further musing, if I can put it that way, the question of whether or not it is appropriate for closure motions to be applied to a dissent motion that is in progress. I urge the Procedure Committee to further consider that issue. As an opposition—and this has been true of oppositions irrespective of which side of politics has been in opposition—we have made only very limited use of dissent motions. It is not a routine event in the House of Representatives. It is something done only when we feel that the procedures have been so impugned that the matter has to be dealt with. I think it would be grossly unfair to suggest that it has been used as a tactical weapon by the opposition, and I think an examination of the Hansard records would bear that out. Given that, I think it is inappropriate for a member who seeks to move a motion of dissent from a Speaker’s ruling not to have the full ability to state his or her case and not to have the matter fully debated. Particularly given that the debate is now an expeditious debate delaying the House for only some 30 minutes, it seems to me that it is appropriate to make sure that speakers in such a debate get the opportunity to fully use their time.

I understand that a government with a full legislative program may become concerned if the standing orders are amended so that dissent motions always get a full debate. They may become concerned if there is evidence that that is then being used in a tactical way for no other purpose than delaying the House for 30 minutes. Should that become a norm in the House of Representatives then obviously I would understand that the Procedure Committee would need to revisit it. But I do not think that there is any reasonable reason to fear that that would become a norm. No behaviour in relation to dissent motions is being exhibited at the moment that would suggest it would become a norm.

This report makes a series of very good recommendations which increase the ability of members of this parliament to truly participate in their capacity as parliamentarians. One of the unpleasant things about the way in which our system is viewed is that there is an undercurrent that if you are not serving as a member of the executive then somehow you are not fully playing a role in this place. That is an analysis that I have always rejected. I think there is a very honourable and needed role to be played by people who come into this place and aspire to be great parliamentarians. I think that this report does increase the opportunities to do that. By facilitating further and better debate on committee reports, that is achieved. It enables people to better play their roles as parliamentarians.

One of the regrets felt by people who have served on committees is that committee work represents probably the nicest face of the parliament. Some of the most vexed issues in our society truly get inquired into in a bipartisan way, often with a lot of good work done in the process by committee members, who work extraordinarily hard to not only get through the documents but also do the necessary travel to hear views across the country. Often we have not paid sufficient regard to that work by allowing the full debate of committee reports, and I am glad that this report helps in that regard. I am also glad that it helps to protect members’ statements in the Main Committee. Of course, the job of all of us here, whether one is a member of the executive or not, at the end of the day is to represent a local constituency. In that regard it is important that people have fair access to parliamentary opportunities to raise issues affecting their local constituency. Some of those issues can be time-critical—things that people want to get on the record of the parliament at a fixed time—and, consequently, it is to be regretted when people lose their opportunity in the Main Committee because of matters in the House. I think the protection of those opportunities is a very good recommendation.

I would certainly support what the member for Chifley said about private members’ bills, and further work being done to ensure that private members’ bills can be the subject of genuine debate in the parliament—and particularly in this place, in the Main Committee. As people who have drawn up private members’ bills would know, and I am certainly in that category, they take a lot of work. It is not an easy challenge to set yourself, as a member of parliament, to draft a bill. Members therefore only do it if they feel very strongly about the issues. There are some social issues in particular that I think are probably best brought to the parliament by way of a private member’s bill because they raise issues which are most likely to be dealt with by a conscience vote by the political parties. We have seen examples of that this year. Indeed, they are private members’ bills that originated in the Senate but obviously the bill on RU486 and the bill that is before us on the appropriate use of stem cells and stem cell research have triggered very substantial debates and have originated as private members’ bills. To see a greater capacity for the debate of private members’ bills would be very good indeed.

The changes to the anticipation rule are sensible ones. We should acknowledge that it was honoured more in the breach than in the observance, even when it was contained in the standing orders. To recognise that by way of a change to the standing orders is appropriate, and when major issues are before the parliament, whether it be the sale of Telstra or the industrial relations legislation, it is inevitable that such matters will be the subject of inquiry at question time, as well as in parliamentary debates and matters of public importance discussions. I do not think we should exclude any of those opportunities through the use of the anticipation rule.

I conclude where I started—by congratulating the Procedure Committee on its work and indicating my support and that of the opposition for the recommendations contained in the report.

Debate (on motion by Mrs Gash) adjourned.

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