Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It is seconded. There are a lot of reasons why people don't like politicians, but probably way up on that list is that so often they don't answer questions directly. How often have we seen media interviews where politicians of all stripes will dodge and refuse to answer very basic and direct questions? Surely, the one place where ministers should be at least compelled to answer questions directly—actually answer them—is in question time and in parliament. It's an incredibly low bar. In fairness to the Labor government, it has not just been Labor enforcing this rule; it has been years of the coalition government doing it as well. I would argue that the question for both the Labor government and the coalition opposition is: are you going to clear this bar—probably one of the most basic bars for how parliament should function? Are you going to agree to a change in the rules that requires ministers to answer questions directly? It's pretty basic.

Right now—let's be frank—question time, by and large, is an enormous and extraordinary waste of public resources and everyone's time. On the one hand, often you have government members get up and ask cutting questions, that—I'll paraphrase here—go along the lines of, 'Why is this government the best government in the history of governments?' We get a direct answer to that. Then, on the other hand, we'll get questions, sometimes useful questions, that ministers refuse to answer directly at all, including, recently, the Minister for the Environment and Water, who failed, repeatedly, to give a basic response and directly address why this government keeps approving coal and gas mines.

It's a basic reform. It's a basic request. I think if the public were asked—it's a pretty basic pub test—'Do we think that, in question time, when a minister is asked a question, they should answer it directly?' 99 per cent of people would say yes. The other one per cent, I suppose, would be government and opposition members and their staff.

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