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

Do you know what this means? It means—best illustrated by the words of the member for Maribyrnong—that the Labor Party, imbued with hubris, carried away with its own self-importance, is so arrogant today that it will not have question time on Fridays. Even the parliament of India specifies that you have to have question time on every day that the parliament sits. Even the Indian parliament, which came some years after the birth of the Australian parliament, specifies that. The Australian parliament is one of the oldest continuing Westminster parliaments in the history of the Commonwealth. Even the comparatively latter-day Indian parliament, set up in 1947, now says that you have to have question time every day.

I tell you what: we will not let this matter rest. We on this side of the House believe in accountability. We on this side of the House believe in transparency. We do not accept cover-ups. You know what? When it comes to the Leader of the House and his spurious arguments about accountability and transparency, I want to give him this pledge: we will pursue that legal advice and we will pursue the case of whether the standing orders of this parliament are a breach of the Constitution and the Australian people, because we believe, at the end of the day, that this parliament can only operate with a properly constituted quorum and that this parliament can only operate with full-time ministers and a full-time Prime Minister. We will not accept a part-time Prime Minister at the beginning of his term.

The Labor Party has a grand history of part-time prime ministers. We know it; the Australian people know it. Paul Keating set up a roster system for question time. He did not want any proper accountability. He was the Prime Minister: he did not want to have to answer questions in question time. And now we have a new Prime Minister, Prime Minister Rudd, playing cricket in the prime ministerial courtyard whilst Australians are struggling to pay grocery prices, interest rates, higher petrol prices. What is the Prime Minister doing? He is fiddling in the courtyard. His bowling action is a disgrace, let alone the fact that he is not subjecting himself to the questions of this parliament. How ironic it is: not two weeks of this parliament have passed and the Prime Minister has got time to go and play cricket in his courtyard, but he has not got time to come into this place and answer questions from members of parliament about how the country is being run. We stand for accountability. We stand for transparency. The Labor Party stand condemned for their cover-ups, their inaction and the fact that their standing orders are clearly a breach of the Constitution.

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