Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The atmosphere in which this debate is taking place is a good example of what we can expect under the current government that has just come into power. I think that what we will be seeing is dictator Rudd, who, while taking the so-called moral high ground, has no concern at all for the wishes of the parliament and no respect for members. He has been elected on the basis of saying he wants more transparency, that he wants to be ‘the reasonable leader’ and that we are going to be sitting more days to have fuller and fairer debate and more accountability, but it is all a facade; it is all a fake. Coming into this parliament today we are told that the most important issue we have to deal with is the apology, when we see the great difficulties that the economy is in. He has chosen this occasion to do so—no matter what is said in this parliament and no matter what support is given—and the nation is still divided.

On the procedural issue before us tonight, what we are seeing is a fundamental breach of the compact that he tried to draw with the Australian people during the election period. The argument is mounted: we are going to sit an extra day, Friday, with no question time, no divisions and no quorums. I think the new member for Leichhardt got the interpretation right when he said:

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

Shoot through is right. The fact of the matter is that, if there is no question time, it is not a meaningful sitting day.

The proposal has been put forward that the opposition is quite prepared to sit additional days. Indeed, it would welcome that. Perhaps we could sit for an extra two weeks instead of the Fridays. Sitting for 20 weeks would not be a problem. The government is going back to 18 weeks. People want value for money. The Leader of the House, who is sitting at the table, would like to say that there is some argument for saving money by having this curious clayton’s sitting day—the sitting day you are having when you are not having a sitting. If we are going to call the parliament together, the people of Australia want value for money, and value for money is seeing you being accountable during question time.

I was in this chamber when Paul Keating decided that there would be a part-time ministry, when the government would put on only certain ministers on a particular day so that they did not have to be accountable to the questioning of the opposition. The invective that we used to hear from Prime Minister Keating—the invective and the lack of accountability—was what, at the end of the day, led to his being thrown out of office by the Australian people. If the current Prime Minister wants to go down the route, I would say that three years of having him as Prime Minister is going to be too long. I could imagine that we would be looking at an early election. My goodness, if the Australian people see—as no doubt they will—that you are not people of your word, then out you will go.

Let us look at it. You said you wanted to have more accountability, so we are now having a clayton’s sitting day. Question time has been ruled out, which means that your ministers can go into marginal seats in preparation for the next round of elections while our members of parliament will be sitting in this parliament doing what they are paid to do—be here. This is a government that does not stand up to its promises. I think one of the things you said you were going to do was stop interest rates going up: failed. Second, I think you said you were going to stop grocery prices going up: failed. Third, I think you said you were going to stop petrol prices going up: failed. You said you were going to be a more transparent government: failed. So we are not really off to a very good start for you lot.

Then there is the question of constitutionality, going to section 39 of the Constitution. That has been raised by some of my colleagues. The danger is this. Those of you who have been chairs of committees—and committee meetings are deemed to be meetings of the parliament—have always been fastidious about maintaining a quorum during hearings for one reason and one reason only: the wish to maintain privilege for the people giving evidence. If you looked like losing quorum, you would either suspend the hearing or move to a subcommittee if that were possible. The same question lies here in this House. If it were deemed that the quorum provisions, as you are proposing them, meant that privilege was not afforded to members whilst they were speaking, that could only be tested by someone saying something defamatory and it ending up in court with the court determining whether or not that privilege applied. By doing this, you are putting at risk all members of the House.

Personally, as chairman of various committees, I have always taken the precaution that, if I was about to lose quorum, I would either have a motion and move to a subcommittee or suspend the hearings because it was not worth putting those witnesses at risk. I do not believe that it is worth putting the members of this House at risk on the question of privilege. I think, if you are in any way reasonable men, you will consider that very seriously. There are interesting case law precedents already. Things that you say can link you to statements that you have made outside the parliament, and the court can deem that they were sufficiently close to the statements that you had made in the House such that the privilege that is afforded to you is not so afforded for the purposes of that case.

So there are all sorts of areas of difficulties that I think have not been considered. There is also the haste with which things have been dealt with along these sorts of lines. With regard to the apology, the fact that we only saw the text of it in the House late this afternoon and the Australian newspaper had it on its website before we members of the parliament were given a copy is an absolute outrage and shows the contempt in which this government holds the parliament. In other words, this tightly guarded set of words was not given to the members of the parliament; it was given to the press. Yet we had called for those words to be given to us and for the general public to know what was to be debated tomorrow. Again, we are going to breach the conventions that we follow here.

Tomorrow we are going to have two speakers on the apology and then we are going to vote on it. We can all have a debate about it later when it is irrelevant to the passage of that motion, whether or not it is carried. Again there is a contempt for the parliamentary procedures and the proper proceedings of the House. I simply say that this is showing us the contempt that the government holds for the parliament. Whereas we have heard before complaints about the power of the executive and the legislature losing power, this time power is going to be concentrated in the hands of the leader, who is going to be dictatorial in all things in this chamber. This is a fine point for us to make here, to hold the ground and say: if we are going to sit, then there must be a question time. If you want to sit 14 days more then let us sit two weeks more. Let us be fair dinkum about it and not pretend that you are going to work harder or wish to work harder, when all you are offering is a clayton’s sitting date.

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