Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This report of the Procedure Committee relating to standing order 72 is very timely. I was on the Procedure Committee for some time, but I am not anymore; however, I do think it is very important that the way matters are conducted in this chamber is reviewed regularly by the Procedure Committee. Question time in particular has become very staid and is in need of a slightly different approach.

As Senator Ferguson outlined in his paper, there are certainly different systems applied around the world. Senator Ferguson refers to the New Zealand system in particular, which I might come back to. He also refers to the British system, which I have seen and which I think is really an interestingly different way of conducting affairs: themes are set for each day of the month so that all questions on a day are directed to a particular minister and department, and that occurs on a monthly rotation; and the Prime Minister, in the House of Commons, only answers questions for an hour once a week. In this chamber, of course, we do not have the Prime Minister but we do have an important minister in the Leader of the Government in the Senate. I think the British system does not allow enough flexibility to deal with important issues which come up day by day. I certainly would not support going to that kind of system in the Australian parliament.

But the New Zealand system, which I have observed, is one that does have a lot more flexibility than our system. In question time, there is a lead question and then several supplementary questions on a particular issue. Were that adopted in this chamber, it would mean that individual senators would have the opportunity to ask spontaneous follow-up questions on particular issues. If that procedure were adopted in this chamber, it would make question time in the Senate much more useful in terms of providing information to senators and the public. The way question time is conducted in New Zealand, the subject questions have to be submitted in writing some time before, so people know the particular subjects that will be covered in a question time. But I think there is also a need for a little bit of flexibility so that spontaneous questions on important issues can be asked.

In general terms, I very much support the thrust of this Procedure Committee report as it refers to question time, but I suggest that one thing that could be copied from the House of Commons is the written questions. These have to be answered on paper and the response is included in the Hansard. As the Procedure Committee report notes, in 2004-05 there were 23,552 answers printed in the Hansard, of which 21,176 were responses to written questions. That means that in the House of Commons a huge volume of issues can be covered through the parliamentary questions mechanism. It might be claimed that our estimates system obviates the need for that, but the British parliament also has an estimates system and a committee system. The possibility of written questions on notice provided to ministers should be considered in addition to adopting a similar system to the New Zealand one. I do agree that the time limit required for the answering of questions should be fairly short—perhaps no more than 10 days.

I want to deal with a couple of the other points raised in this report. The clarification of the role of a deputy chair is important. It is often unclear when the chair leaves a committee meeting whether the deputy chair should take over or another person who the chair or the majority of members present decide to elect as an acting chair should take over. It is very important that there be crystal clarity about the role of the deputy chair.

The other point relates to seeking leave to make statements. Seeking leave is a very important procedure in this chamber because many things can be done by seeking leave. This procedure is abused sometimes and people do speak for an inordinate amount of time once they have been granted leave to make some comments. I do support the concept of having a time limit on it. I would support a time limit of up to five minutes and that might be allocated on the basis of three minutes initially with an additional two minutes being provided if necessary.

In general terms, I think the Procedure Committee has written a very interesting report, as it always does. The specific suggestions in relation to reforming question time in this chamber should be given very serious consideration.