Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

I rise particularly to oppose the changes to the matter of public importance debate. As the name suggests, the MPI is the key debate of the day in this parliament. Indeed, the House of Representatives Practice says:

The MPI is one of the principal avenues available to private Members to initiate immediate debate on a matter which is of current concern.

On page 576 it goes on to say:

The matter of public importance procedure developed from a provision in the standing orders adopted in 1901 which permitted a Member to move formally the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance.

This provision has served this parliament for 106 years. What we have is an arrogant government that wants to stifle debate in an election year, a government determined to avoid scrutiny and accountability, a government prepared to take this extraordinary step in order to particularly stifle the three Independents in this House. But it is not just them the government seeks to stifle but also the members of the opposition and the members of their increasingly nervous backbench who they do not want participating in the key debate of the day. Why is this occurring? Last year there were 50 debates on matters of public importance in this House. Of those, only 13 went for more than an hour, but, of those 13, six went more than an hour by 90 seconds or less.

We have here the jackboots of the Leader of the House, coming in here and changing standing orders. This was due to be debated last night, but it was deferred until today. Why? So the government could gag this very debate about the gagging of matters of public importance in this parliament. The only debates to have gone for more than an hour have been over critical issues such as the war in Iraq. We saw today the refusal of the government leader, the Prime Minister, to have a debate on the war in Iraq. They do not want scrutiny outside the parliament—they will not turn up for debate—and inside parliament they want to stifle the debate. They want to cut off the oxygen from the right of members to put forward their views. We have had the war in Iraq.

What were the other issues on which the debate went for more than an hour last year?

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