Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

If the honourable member would just listen I could tell him that under the former standing orders we sat four days a week. There was question time four days a week. Under the new standing orders we will sit on the first four days of the week and there will be question time on the first four days of the week. Under the standing orders there used to be three matters of public importance debates. Under the new standing orders there will still be three matters of public importance debates.

Can I further point this out: just let’s look at the way in which the parliament has been operating in its first two weeks of operations. Under the life of the Howard government there was an average of about 18 or 19 questions every question time. Under the first two weeks of the Rudd Labor government we have been averaging more than 20 questions, and that is over the question times that we have had so far. There have been more questions—and that is with the extraordinary interruptions and objections that have been attempted by the opposition in these first two sitting weeks.

Can I make another point about the way in which this parliament has been operating? Throughout the whole of 2007 the Howard government gave precisely two ministerial statements in this House. In the first two weeks of the parliamentary sittings under the Rudd Labor government there have been four ministerial statements, and there will continue to be ministerial statements made.

There have been complaints made, both last week and this—with all kinds of hysterical statements—about the changes to standing orders. There was a suggestion, first of all, that there was some problem about the quorum requirement imposed under section 39 of Commonwealth Constitution. The other point that has been made was about some bizarre allegation by a number of the members opposite that there might be some loss of the absolute parliamentary privilege that attaches to statements made by members in this House. I need to state it clearly: there is no problem in relation to the quorum. All that we have now, with the new standing orders that have been introduced to regulate these Friday sittings, is a continuation of a practice that has been in place in this House—and, might I add, in the Senate—for some years.

It is an absurd suggestion that proceedings in this place could in any sense lose the parliamentary privilege that attaches to them, because of some imagined point that has been put forward about the quorum requirement. Earlier this week, on the morning of 20 February, the Speaker made an exceptionally clear statement on both points, and that should have put the matter to rest. It did not put the matter to rest because we have seen, both yesterday and again today, continued complaints about the new standing orders that have been introduced.

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