Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

To quote the Leader of the House:

... you don’t need, on top of that—

that is, the actions of the government—

rules of engagement that allow a laziness and complacency to evolve in government.

They are his own words and yet the first action of the Leader of the House is to change the standing orders to remove, for the first time since federation, the capacity of the House on any single scheduled sitting day to have a question time. That is his first act and he says to the Australian people that it is the responsibility of the parliament to keep the government honest and to keep ministers accountable to avoid complacency, weakness and arrogance.

Let us be very clear about what the government is proposing here. They are increasing the scheduled sitting days for this year. We have no problems with that at all. In fact, we will be here en masse for those scheduled sitting days, and if they want to schedule more sitting days we will be here as well. What we have a problem with is that they are having no question time on 14 of those days. On 14 of those days there will be no question time. Since 1970, the highest number of scheduled sitting days without question time was seven. Now they are doubling it and they claim to be introducing greater accountability and greater transparency.

Secondly, and I think very significantly, the government is proposing to have no divisions or quorums during the course of private members’ business. This is a substantial initiative from this government. Previously there has been agreement between the government and the opposition that during dinner breaks quorums or divisions are deferred. In fact, it was in the standing orders that there would be quorums but they would be deferred. Now they are saying they are going to start a parliamentary sitting day without a quorum. They are trying to delay quorums until the end of a sitting day, despite the endeavours of the opposition to ensure that government members at least turn up.

We will—and I guarantee this—over the next few months, and years if necessary, remind this place and remind the government of the words of the new member for Leichhardt, who said:

From what I can gather, there won’t be any question time on Friday, so we will be able to shoot through ...

The new member for Leichhardt, who has not even made his maiden speech in this place, has said to the Australian public, ‘We are going to have a part-time parliament on Fridays.’ At the cost of a million dollars a day to the Australian taxpayers, we are not going to have the ministers turn up. The Prime Minister will be swanning around the country, but we are going to have parliament sit on a Friday. That is not accountability; that is not transparency; that is a fraud. You cannot claim to be a more accountable government and then schedule 14 sitting days of this parliament where the ministers and the Prime Minister do not even bother to turn up and where the member for Leichhardt cannot even get off his hide to stay here to do the job that the people of Leichhardt have put him in to do. If he does not want to be in parliament, we will find someone who wants to be in parliament. If other members of the government do not want to be here to answer the Australian people, we will find people who do, because that is what we believe in: accountability and transparency.

As though he had a gift from the gods, the Leader of House stood up in this place and said, ‘We have legal advice to say that our quorum arrangements are not in breach of section 39 of the Constitution.’ That is taxpayer funded advice—table the advice. It is very simple: table the advice. The Leader of the House stood in this place not a moment ago and said of this advice, ‘We have that legal advice to say it is all kosher.’ Well, table the advice. We have got no problems with it. The Leader of the House raised the issue of legal advice; he should table the advice. There is not going to be a day that passes where we will not be after that legal advice. If everything they are doing is kosher with the Constitution, which is very explicit about the quorum of this parliament, then they have got nothing to hide and they should table the legal advice. It was paid for by the taxpayers. The Leader of the House said, ‘We are going to be more transparent, open and honest.’ No problems, we agree; please be more transparent, accountable and honest. Table the legal advice saying that the quorum provisions that you are putting through the parliament tonight are legal. If you have got nothing to hide then no problem; we can accommodate that.

The amendments which we received at three o’clock today were 18 pages long and covered a vast range of issues. Only hours ago we got 18 pages of changes to the standing orders that, for the first time since Federation, guarantee that scheduled sitting days will not have question times. That is not good enough. That is not greater accountability, greater transparency and greater honesty; that is not being fair dinkum with the Australian people. That is not part of the equation.

It goes one step further. Understand the history of the current arrangements. There have been various manifestations of the standing orders and the scheduling of the parliament over the last few years, but the Howard government essentially kept the arrangements put in place by the Keating government in 1994 and the Hawke government in 1992, where at various times private members’ business moved from Friday to Monday. Even when Paul Keating was a part-time Prime Minister, he had a question time with private members’ business. Even Paul Keating—the bastion of accountability to this parliament, the part-time Prime Minister—had question times when there was private members’ business. He would not schedule a sitting day without question time, and nor would Bob Hawke or Gough Whitlam. None of them ever scheduled regular sitting days of this parliament without question times. This mob comes in here preaching and spinning about accountability and transparency to the Australian people, yet their first action is to reduce the accountability and transparency of their own government to this parliament.

The deal has always been—and it is in the House of Representatives Practicethat, when private members’ business is held on a Monday, there is an agreement between the opposition and the government that there will be no documents tabled, no ministerial statements, no MPI and, in return, there will be private members’ business. What has happened is that the Labor Party in government have taken away MPIs and private members’ business but reintroduced the tabling of documents and reintroduced ministerial statements. So they have covered themselves. They have broken the deal. They have covered themselves under the House of Representatives Practice, but they do not care about the opposition’s voice because they do not want accountability and transparency.

I will be moving a number of amendments to the proposal put forward by the government. Having only received these at three o’clock today, it is quite remarkable that we have been able to get eight amendments up. Do you know what, Mr Deputy Speaker? We want the parliament to sit more hours than the government is proposing, because we want question time every day. We want MPIs every day. We want accountability every day. We want to have a full-time government, not a part-time government. I seek leave to move together the amendments that have been circulated in my name. I will be seeking that at the appropriate time.

We are going to debate this and, if it needs to go all night, we will do it all night. We have never been in a situation where a government has tried to schedule regular sitting days of this parliament without the accountability of the Prime Minister and his ministers to this parliament. We believe in parliamentary democracy. We believe in the Westminster system. We believe in accountability. We believe in transparency—and do you know what else we believe in? We believe in the fact that this government cannot run roughshod over democracy. We will not cop that. The Australian people will not cop that.

It is an early indication of the arrogance of this government that they should seek without consultation to change the details of the standing orders to the detriment of the parliament and democracy. I tell you what, Mr Speaker: it is not good enough for them to present us only a few hours ago with the details of the changes to these standing orders and yet at the same time to go out and preach to the Australian people how they are a more accountable and transparent government. If you are going to be hypocrites, why do it so early in your term? You have the next three years to be hypocrites again. I do not think you will disappoint me in that regard. But the fundamental point is that you will disappoint the Australian people because you told the Australian people that you would be more accountable and yet for the first time since Federation you are scheduling regular sitting days and deliberately taking away the right of the Australian people to have questions asked of their Prime Minister and their ministers. That is a shame when it comes to democracy. It is a shame that it is the behaviour of a new government. It is arrogance in the extreme, and the losers out of this are the Australian people, who under the Labor Party are going to end up funding a part-time parliament.

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