Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I refer you to the remark of the Prime Minister to this House that it had not previously sat on Fridays and your advice to me to contact the chamber research service with regard to that matter. Mr Speaker, can you confirm to the House their advice that there were scheduled Friday sittings during 1970 and, more recently, between February 1984 and September 1987, a period when your father occupied the chair, until and during 1986? Do you further recollect if your father officiated over question time on those Fridays?

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I point out that that was not really a question to me. I am glad that the chamber research service was able to provide some information to the member for O’Connor. Perhaps not as the occupant of the chair but, when I was elected, I can remember the frantic pace of going to Canberra airport on a Friday afternoon and that there was a question time and a truncated MPI—and I am not entering further into the debate.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I do have a question for you. Can you confirm that the parliament of India conducts a question hour on every day that that parliament sits? Can you confirm that the Indian government believes that the asking of questions is an inherent and unfettered parliamentary right of a member?

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not in the position to confirm what the Lok Sabha or any other aspect of the Indian parliament does. I am having enough problems keeping up to date with what the Australian parliament is doing. I am not pursuing that question.