Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Under your protection I will continue. What we see is another grand announcement by the government: the parliament will now work five days a week. But it is only once you look at the detail that you realise what a sham this proposal is. Once you look at the detail you realise that this is another empty gesture from an empty Prime Minister. What is actually proposed is that we will turn up on Fridays but the executive will not bother. The new member for Leichhardt—and I do not recognise him, if he is in the chamber—has already belled the cat. He told the Australian on 11 February this year exactly what the government intends to do:

From what I can gather—

he said—

there won’t be any question time on Friday, so we will be able to shoot through ...

We on this side of the House are very happy to work Fridays, but we will not accept a clayton’s parliamentary sitting day. We want a proper sitting day. We want a sitting day like it has existed in this House in the past. So let us have question time. Let us have an MPI. Let us have quorums and divisions. The fact is that the proposed parliamentary sitting schedule is completely unprecedented in that it will omit question time on a sitting day, something that has not happened since the standing orders were altered in 1950. In other words, this is nothing short of another political stunt devoid of accountability and lacking in serious thought.

Since 1987 parliament has only sat on a Friday to deal with urgent matters, including bills and Senate amendments. But Labor’s proposed reforms will seek to change all this. Will the opposition be able to use the parliament to challenge and query decisions of ministers of the Rudd government, as this parliament is supposed to be used, to hold the executive to account? No, we will not. We will not even be allowed to vote on legislation.

We are very happy to turn up on Fridays. We are very happy to work for a full week. But we insist that it is a full week of proper sitting days. This proposal is part of a pattern of behaviour that has been emerging from this government, and sadly it is a pattern of behaviour that should give all Australians grave cause for concern about the motives and the actions of their new government.

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