Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Except on a Friday. It reminds us of the last Labor Prime Minister we had, a man called Paul Keating, who put on a roster; he rostered himself on and off—which is probably the way we are heading back under the unionised government that has just been elected, and here we are already. We are going to have five sitting days, but the Prime Minister is not going to turn up on one of them. What will happen next week? Next week will we be told, ‘Well, actually he’s cutting back to three days a week and his ministers are cutting back further’?

The government is showing at this very early stage all of the evidence that it does not want to be accountable where it really counts. I also notice that the Prime Minister will be very, very happy to turn up on Gold FM, Triple M or any one of the very good radio programs across Australia—he will go on Rovebut I notice that he is not quite so willing to turn up to the scrutiny of the ABC and some of its more penetrating interviewers. I notice that those opposite have a very sophisticated way of avoiding scrutiny when it comes to the really tough interviews. That is now coming into the parliament; it is now coming in here.

The Australian people are not going to have their ministers turning up on a Friday, even though they are paying them good money to be here; those ministers are not going to turn up to answer questions. We are not going to have a debate on a Monday on a matter of public importance. If, for example, petrol goes from $1.35 to $1.50 a litre on Sunday, forget about having debate on a matter of public importance in the parliament.

Whilst I understand that Australians will always see the opposition questioning the motives of any government that moves to change the standing orders, it is very, very important that they understand that this is a significant change. For the first time we are going to have a scheduled sitting day without a question time, which is when questions are asked on behalf of Australians of the Prime Minister and his ministers. That is a step into a darkness of reduced accountability of the executive to the parliament—to the people of Australia—which is a backward step, and every Australian— (Time expired)

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