Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Procedure I wish to make a statement concerning the committee's inquiry into the practices and procedures relating to question time. The role of our committee is to inquire into and report on the practices and procedures of the House. In other words it's our role to make recommendations about possible changes, but then it is up to the House whether or not to adopt them. This means that we need to be considered and clear about what we might recommend and why. In August the committee began its inquiry to look at how question time in the House runs and whether it can be improved. A survey was launched, and this survey is a valuable first step in understanding some of the key issues that the public see as important.

While the submissions have given us additional insights, our next step is equally important—that is, to consider the responses to that survey. The public survey received more than 3,400 responses. The survey was a mixture of closed and open ended questions, and the committee was struck by the number of people who took the time to provide detailed comments. The committee also received over 40 submissions. The committee is also grateful to the speakers of the state legislatures, who have taken the time to write to us about their practices relating to question time, and we will look carefully at these in considering what might be appropriate in the federal context. As a result, the committee now has more than 500 pages of survey results to analyse and consider. We've begun to analyse the results, and there are some themes emerging. While there are some clear areas that the public would like us to explore, there was a wide range of responses to many of the questions which the committee will now need to work through to explore the nuances in the results.

The key themes that emerged from the survey are the format of questions and question time, and strengthening the rules on relevance. Some respondents reiterated the role of question time in holding the government of the day to account, whilst others saw that there could be increased opportunities for questions relating to constituency issues. There were also many other suggestions, ranging from permitting supplementary questions to introducing alternative models for allocating questions between members.

We will now take all of this feedback into account in considering the report in greater detail. At this stage, I would like to thank the work of the committee, and I note the deputy chair, the member for Oxley, is also going to make some comments in relation to this. I would also like to thank the secretariat in Natalie Cooke, Kate Roggeveen, Josephine Moa and Penny Branson for work they've done to bring the committee to this point in the inquiry.

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