Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, in the spirit of the occasion, let me offer my personal congratulations to you and invite you to convey to the Speaker formally my congratulations, which I have already conveyed to him informally. I have had the opportunity over some time of viewing many changes in relation to parliamentary procedure. I have not been encouraged to get into the debate about these matters which go to mere manner and form. But, on this occasion, I think there are some important issues that confront us because they involve systemic changes, if I might put it in that form, to the system of rules under which this parliament operates.

It is interesting, as the Leader of the Opposition drew attention to earlier, that these amendments sit uncomfortably, in my view, with the comments made by the Governor-General on behalf of the government in the speech that His Excellency made at the opening of this the 42nd Parliament. He said that this government is going to trade on implementing measures to help make government more accessible, more transparent in its decision making. If you go further in the speech, and it is line after line, the government has stated its preparedness to listen to the ideas of Australians for the future of our country. It wants to leave no stone unturned to ensure Australia is on the right track for the future, and that means listening to Australians, according to the Governor-General. If you were in any doubt when you got to the conclusion, he goes on to say that the government is committed to being a government that listens to the Australian people, consults with the Australian people and is up front with the Australian people. But when it comes to this parliament, where the Australian people elect members to sit and to speak for them, of course what we have are proposals to constrain that effectiveness, that accountability, that transparency. One can be forgiven for coming to a view that what is proposed here is a systemic change to ensure that there is, in fact, less opportunity for accountability.

I know during the debate Mr Burke, the member for Watson, was saying, ‘We’ve still got three MPIs a week and we’ve got four question times a week; really there’s nothing to worry about,’ but in fact, if you were trying to put in place extra days of sitting within the existing framework, we would of course be sitting for extra weeks. That is the reality. His argument was illusionary, in my view, and it is an argument that has been pursued in other ways. People have taken particular examples and said that at other points in time during our parliament we have seen MPIs suspended. That has happened, but the context has usually been when there has been another debate in another form—namely, the suspension of standing orders to move a censure of the government. And it would not be surprising if, when you had had the opportunity to debate for three hours the censure of a government, you came to the view that you did not need the extra opportunity for an MPI. That has happened quite frequently, as the member for Kooyong has noted.

But, equally, when it comes to issues where you may have a quorum or a division and you have agreement in large part between the government and the opposition that you will not call a division when somebody is having a meal, that may provide a basis for suspension of, largely, the whole of a sitting. As I have listened to this debate tonight, my real concern has been that these proposals, which do envisage that the parliament will continue to sit without a question time and without the opportunity to discuss a matter of public importance—and people will be required to be here to maintain a quorum, at least at the start of the day—will mean that ministers will be slipping away. I have heard that ministers will be slipping away. I have heard suggestions that ministers will in fact be sitting in their rooms.

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