Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On indulgence, Mr Speaker, I make a brief statement in relation to the allocation of the call during question time. The government has been asked about the allocation of the call during question time. The practice of the House is that the Speaker controls the allocation of the call at all times subject to well-established conventions such as the alternation of the call between government and non-government members. The Australian Greens Party and the ALP agreement provides for a fixed and fair allocation of questions for Independents and minor party members, with the first question no later than the sixth question in each question time. I confirm the government’s commitment to this and I have discussed the matter with the Chief Government Whip as well as the non-government members, and I have advised the Manager of Opposition Business that I would this week be making this statement to the House.

During each question time, after five questions have been asked and answered, the call would ordinarily be given to a government member to ask the sixth question. In order to ensure that the commitment in the agreement is implemented in full, if at that point—that is, after the fifth question—a non-aligned member rises to seek the call, the Chief Government Whip has asked that no government member seek the call. I want to place this matter on the record for the benefit of the orderly functioning of the House and confirm that this will have no impact on the number of questions being asked by the opposition during question time.

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

On indulgence, I have had discussions with the Leader of the House in relation to this matter. The opposition is perfectly relaxed about the government ceding one of its, usually, 10 questions to the crossbenches to be asked. I do make the point that the opposition will be seeking at the end of each question time to ask the 20th question, given that the agreement that we reached with the government and the crossbenches was that there would be 20 questions asked each question time. The Leader of the House’s proposition would mean that if the opposition did not ask the last question we would only have 19 questions being asked. So it is our intention to hold the government to the agreement that we made with them that there would be 20 questions each day. We do welcome the opportunity to ask 10 questions, for the government to ask nine and for the crossbenches to ask one of the government’s number.

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

The Speaker now looks forward to next question time! To enable me to make some comments could I admonish the member for Dickson and ask him to take a seat. Uncharacteristically, I know that he is very keen to celebrate today. I say to him that, having achieved the roaring 40s in years, he might rely on the 40 rather than the roaring! He should now work out who tipped me off!