Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

You are not going to do that? That is good news. We are even more pleased to hear about that because we want private members to get more opportunities to debate. That had been the impression that I had been given, so that is good news. We will be able to debate private members’ business today as well as the renewable energy targets bills late into the night. I am pleased that the Leader of the House has confirmed that.

We would like to see other reforms to the standing orders. We would like to see the oft called for claims of the previous opposition about four-minute answers in question time adhered to. It is embarrassing, in fact, for the Leader of the House that, on most of the occasions that he has answered questions, he has transgressed the four-minute rule—51 per cent of the time in 2008 and getting worse in 2009 at 69 per cent of the time. The Minister for Education transgressed her own four-minute rule in 2008, 61 per cent of the time and she is getting worse too, she is up to 66 per cent—

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