Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I always thought that hubris took a little while before it set in. Usually, governments have been in power for quite a while before they start getting cocky about government and the hubris sets in. The hubris has not even taken two months with the new Labor government. It is quite incredible. Have a look at the issue with the apology. We got the detailed wording this evening for an apology that is supposed to be made tomorrow. This is something that your side has been talking about for months, and yet it is the night before—not even the morning before—that we get the wording of the apology. So much for government accountability and transparency. It sets a good precedent really early.

The problem with the whole idea of having no divisions and no quorums on Fridays brings to mind a title of a movie. I will change it somewhat: ‘What if you held parliament and no-one came?’ That is one of the potential aspects of this and one of the potentially ludicrous situations that you could have when there are no quorums, no divisions, no question times and no MPIs. Sometimes you hear people out in the community saying, ‘Parliament is just like a schoolyard.’ Quite frankly, if you think about this in terms of a school, think about some of the schools that have a Friday free-dress day. In this case the equivalent would be Friday no teacher day, Friday no rollcall day, Friday do whatever you like when you turn up at school day. I say, ‘Do whatever you like,’ because what about bad behaviour? What happens if a member gets up and the behaviour that they display is utterly disgraceful? How is the Speaker supposed to discipline that member if he cannot call a division? It is absolutely ridiculous.

If Friday is supposedly such an important day for parliamentary hearings, why is it that we will have no quorum, no division, no question time and no MPI? Do you know why? It is because the ministers know full well that you need that three-day turnaround so that you can actually go to your constituencies and do other work within your electorate. They know it. They need to get out and do their work. While they are gallivanting around the country, they are hoping that the rest of parliament is going to sit here and dutifully talk, with no quorums, no divisions et cetera.

The member for Canning correctly pointed out that this could almost be inferred as being some sort of revenge on Western Australian people for having dared to have the audacity to vote strongly for the Liberal Party. The fact is that, when you go to Perth, you are effectively going to have a two-week turnaround. You will leave Perth one week and you will not be able to deal with constituents in the interim. Basically you are condemned to two weeks in Canberra if you choose to stay on the Friday.

The member for Berowra made another important point: what about parliamentary privilege, if you do not have a quorum? What happens if a member just voices the word ‘quorum’ or says ‘I draw your attention to the state of the House’? Will we just hold it over to next time? If the member then makes some statement that would require privilege, there could be a very real problem with it.

Basically, Labor are riding roughshod over the Constitution and, as has been seen with a whole variety of aspects of their behaviour over the last couple of months, they are shooting from the hip and not thinking about the consequences of what they are doing. I urge the government to support the amendments to the legislation so that we can get a realistic footing to this so-called decision.

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