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

I will go ahead with the original motion and we will do the committees after question time. I apologise to the member for Bass and the other new members of the House who are preparing for their maiden speeches—I will keep my remarks very brief—but the reason I am moving this debate forward is that the standing order changes impact on question time. I did not want to interrupt the maiden speeches halfway through and cause disservice to the family members and friends who have come for these very important opening speeches. I decided it was important to get these amendments out of the way now so they would be able to affect the first question time.

The standing order changes have been circulated to the House through the Notice Paper and today. They make a few changes. Most of them are machinery provisions recommended by the clerks and by various procedure committees over the years. I will explain a few of them. Some of the changes in the 43rd Parliament were unique to the 43rd Parliament because it was a parliament in which the crossbenchers, through the alliance they had with the government, had a majority. Some of those changes have been removed.

The matters of public importance will be reduced to one hour, as they used to be. We will sit from 12 o'clock on Tuesday. For the first two hours of that day we will not have forums or divisions. They will be delayed until later in the day. We will reduce the sitting hours by bringing the finishing time back from 10.30 on Monday and Tuesday to 9.30. These hours are, we think, more friendly to the health of our good colleagues on both sides of the House. The health of my colleagues is, of course, always first and foremost in my thinking.

We will allow the Selection Committee to refer matters directly to the Federation Chamber. In the past there has been a convoluted and complicated process involving the Speaker, but we will allow the Selection Committee to refer matters to the Federation Chamber without the Speaker's involvement. This change was recommended by the clerks and various procedure committees. We will allow the Leader of the House to refer matters to the Federation Chamber without votes in order to ensure the smooth and democratic passage of non-controversial legislation, committee reports, delegation reports and private member's business.

One of the changes we are making is the implementation of interventions in the House of Representatives. This is a matter that I have long wanted to introduce into this parliament. It is very common in the House of Commons in Westminster and it allows a more spontaneous debate, a more free-flowing debate in the chamber. During his or her second reading speech, a member would have the opportunity, if another member wanted to interrupt them, to give way to that member. That member might want to ask a question or make a statement. It does not have to be a hostile question or statement. In fact, these matters could come from either side of the parliament. This change would introduce more spontaneity into the parliament and allow a more free-flowing debate. I envisage that, over the months and years, as members become more confident with the prospect of interventions in the chamber, they would give way and allow debate to flow more freely.

We will not be continuing with supplementary questions in this 44th Parliament. I regard that as having been a pilot program of the 43rd Parliament and I do not think its benefits measured up. Unfortunately, I think the government in the 43rd Parliament abused supplementary questions—they were not really genuine. As a consequence, we are going to remove the discretion of the Speaker to allow supplementary questions.

Members on both sides of the House will be very familiar with the practice of making an outrageous statement about another member of the House, whether it is accusing me of wanting to sack one in seven teachers or whether it is accusing the Turnbull-led opposition of voting against the first stimulus package. Time and time again, members had to rise to the dispatch box to correct such misrepresentations when they knew the person making it knew it was a misrepresentation. I think all sides of the House are thoroughly sick of that pantomime and we intend to eliminate it. The Speaker will be able to decide that, if a misrepresentation has already been corrected, the continued making of that misrepresentation is disorderly. I think that will improve the atmosphere of the chamber.

Many of the other changes are machinery changes designed to give the Federation Chamber more status, to allow a freer flow of business to the Federation Chamber. We will not be continuing with the situation where the Selection Committee has a majority of non-government members on it. That would be unusual in a parliament where there are 90 government members and 60 non-government members. We will be removing the crossbench member from the Selection Committee. We are also putting into the standing orders the longstanding practice that the Prime Minister chooses the chair of standing committees in the House of Representatives and the Leader of the Opposition chooses the deputy chair.

I believe these standing orders will add to the lustre of the parliament. I think they will democratise the parliament more and they will give members the opportunity to take part in debates in a more spontaneous way. Before I move the motion standing in my name, I ask whether the Manager of Opposition Business has had an opportunity to look at the list of committees and whether he is happy for me to move that amendment?

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