Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I too note this report of the Procedure Committee relating to standing order 72 and the motion moved by Senator Evans, and I agree with the comments of previous speakers that if we want the Senate to be a dynamic institution, to be relevant, then having a regular review of our procedures is more than appropriate.

If I could focus on the issue of question time—and I note the comments of Senator Ferguson yesterday and the reference to reforming or restructuring question time in the report—I believe that is something that ought to be explored. I believe that it does have a lot of merit. It is my general practice to let the relevant government minister’s office know the nature of a question I will be asking—in fact, just a few moments ago I contacted Senator Faulkner’s office to advise that I am hoping to ask a question this afternoon on water recycling and stormwater harvesting in Adelaide—because it is not about mounting an ambush; it is about getting a decent answer. That is the way I like to conduct myself in this place, to allow question time to also be an effective answer time.

I do note the comments of Senator Bob Brown that there may be circumstances when there is a need for an urgent question, if something has occurred, or there may be exceptional circumstances where you do allow for an urgent question to be asked. I think that there ought to be flexibility in any proposed restructuring of question time to allow for that. I do think that we would get much more value from our question time, as would our constituents, if there were a reform of the current structure of question time.

I also want to reflect on the issue of questions on notice—that there be, as Senator Bob Brown referred to, a specified time period for a response, similar to the Scottish parliament. I think that is the sort of thing that would be a very useful reform.

In relation to private senator’s bills, while they are not directly referred to in this particular report, I want to note that in my time as a member of the South Australian parliament’s upper house, if many private members bills were introduced—and I was responsible for many of those—there was always a provision to allow for a vote on those bills at the behest of the member introducing the bill. That gave members, particularly crossbenchers, an opportunity to find out where the government or indeed the opposition were on a particular issue, and that is a very useful exercise. I think it would be good for democracy to have in place a system that would allow for votes to be put as a matter of course. Maybe, given the time constraints in this place, it would be a truncated debating period where people could state their positions. But, in terms of a bill at the second reading stage, I would have thought that was something that ought to be allowed for private senator’s bills as a matter of course.

Having said that, I look forward to ongoing discussion about this. I think that, if we improve the structure of question time in particular, the Senate will be a better place for it and I think that our constituents will thank us for it as well.