Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the motion moved by Senator Evans. I recommend the contents of the Procedure Committee’s report to senators. It covers a number of areas and, importantly, amendments to standing order 72 which caused some discussion in the Senate not long ago. I think it is important that we keep the drafting of the standing orders up to date. Many of them were drafted a long time ago, and overseeing various parts of the standing orders to ensure that drafting can be improved could be a job that the Procedure Committee could do on a more than regular basis. I sympathise with whoever is sitting in the chair in relation to the interpretation of some of the standing orders. I think that the suggestions to amend standing order 72 are very good.

I would like to touch on two other areas briefly. Firstly, in relation to the question of how we structure question time each day, I am a great fan of questions without notice. I am a veteran of some 600 or so question times and, as a former minister, I can say that questions without notice keep the government to account and force ministers to concentrate on the portfolio and other related issues for which they have responsibility in the Senate. To take away the element of surprise takes away the sharpness of question time. There is the question of relevance. I think Senator Ferguson has done an admirable job in the paper he has included in the report. I agree with Senator Parry that we could certainly look at question time. But the one thing I would like to remain is that they be questions without notice.

There are very few jurisdictions in the world where you have questions without notice asked of the government. I know it sidetracks ministers in the course of the day. I think it was Senator Evans who caused them to have a look at the brief and I agreed with him at the time. I hope I have not misquoted him. Questions without notice keep the minister of the day on his or her toes—and quite rightly so. When I had all those question times, the fact that there were questions without notice galvanised the concentration demand somewhat, and I think it is important that we do that. This is a unique feature of the Australian parliament, so I would want that to stay.

The other question I would like to touch on is short statements, which have been somewhat the bete noire of the Senate. I have much experience in relation to this as a manager of government business and opposition business, and invariably it is a rule or a convention which is abused. You give leave for a short statement, and half the time they are long statements. We can put a time limit on it, and the practice now is that two minutes are given—and we will see how that goes. My preferred option is to put it into standing orders and say a short statement should be two minutes and just that, because to pick and choose whether you set a time limit or not can invite some controversy. I think you need a set rule as to what a short statement is. I think that that is something that should be looked at. Leave is invariably given for a short statement, and I am a firm believer that where leave is sought for a short statement it should be given, generally speaking. When leave is sought, a senator should be allowed to at least seek leave. That was another issue which was not necessarily canvassed in the report but which was put on the agenda.

I think seeking leave is one of the great safety mechanisms of the chamber—that is, no matter what the standing orders, a senator can seek leave to say or do something. The requirements of the day might necessitate that, and I think it should be there as a convention that if leave is sought then the person should be allowed to seek it at least. Whether or not they get it granted is another story. That is a completely different question. Sometimes you get leave and sometimes you do not, but at least you should be given that assurance that you can seek it and ask for it. I think that is something we could clear up in the standing orders because the Senate, as a bastion of free speech and accountability, should have the ability to guarantee a senator that, if he or she wants to seek leave, at least they can seek it. Whether or not they get it is another matter. I think that is an important issue.

Finally, I leave the Senate to contemplate this: where we have sought to suspend standing orders—and there are a number of other mechanisms, like contingency motions and such—we have shortcut the mechanism by agreement. That has been done on occasions. I would like to see that streamlined a bit more so that we do not have what can be a convoluted process to arrive at that point. We generally know what the arguments are and we can generally express them in five or 10 minutes—no more. But sometimes, when we have had the whole issue of suspension of standing orders, it has taken more time than the issue at hand itself was going to take. I wonder if it is not worth looking at streamlining it so that we have a certain ability for everybody to speak on it or that there be sufficient time to canvass the important issues at hand but streamlining the whole suspension of standing orders so that the Senate can quickly resolve the question ‘Do we suspend or not?’ one way or another. At the moment you can take a rather circuitous route to arrive at that. I would invite the Procedure Committee to give that some thought in the future. This is a very good report. I think the Procedure Committee has done a really good job here, and I think a few more reports from it would be quite handy.