Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I also want to add my support to the proposal suggested by Senator Ferguson for a change in the way we operate at question time. I do not want to be partisan in saying this, but I think any fair minded observer of question time in this Senate during 2008 would accept that rarely have any of the ministers to whom questions were asked actually answered the questions. The number of points of order being taken—not only by the Liberal and National parties but by the Greens and the minor parties as well—is, I think, proof that senators simply do not believe that the questions they have seriously asked are being addressed by the ministers.

I have tried to encourage the former President and the current President to rule on relevance. I know that they say that they are not able to direct ministers how to answer questions—and I am not suggesting that they should—but they should require them to address the question that is asked, to give an answer and, if the minister is not capable of giving an answer, to say so and to sit down. The whole purpose of question time is to provide an opportunity for non-government senators to find out what is happening, to understand what the government is doing, to keep the government accountable and to get information which is very often relevant to our constituents. People want to know things. They want to understand why governments are doing things. They want to know when things are happening.

I would desperately like to know what the Labor government is doing to prosecute the Queensland government for its breach of EPBC conditions on the Paradise Dam up near Bundaberg. The Queensland government built that dam. It was approved by the then environment minister under the EPBC Act, subject to certain conditions. Those conditions were not met by the Queensland government. I asked Senator Carr about it. You should not do this—and this is germane to Senator Ferguson’s suggestion in the report—but I tipped Senator Carr off that I was going to be asking about this. I then asked him what they were doing and he started talking about the Traveston Crossing Dam, not about the Paradise Dam, which I had actually asked him about. Of course, I got no answer. I still cannot get an answer on what is happening.

Similarly, a lot of my constituents are desperate to know what Mr Garrett’s timetable is for his EPBC consideration of the Traveston Crossing Dam on the Mary River. My constituents are very concerned about that dam. They are hoping that Mr Garrett will go back to his rock band days and the principles he held dear in those days, and save the lungfish, the Mary River cod and the other species that are endangered now, because they could disappear if the Traveston Crossing Dam goes ahead. I have asked about that at question time but I am still none the wiser about when Mr Garrett might get around to making a decision. I suspect the delay is because he does not want to offend his mates in the Queensland Labor government, who are the proponents of this awful dam, but at least I would like to know when he might be going to make a decision, what his process is and where he is at. Perhaps he could even let me know if there is some way I could help him make the decision! But if you ask these questions they are just ignored.

That brings into question the whole purpose of question time. As Senator Mason rightly said, it now seems to be an opportunity for government ministers, on TV every now and again, to get up and give a four-minute policy speech on all the great work that they have done. They are not answering our questions. They are just getting up, picking a word out of the question and then talking to the television cameras for four minutes and telling everyone what a great job they have done. That is not what question time is about.

I have seen a number of question times in parliaments around the world—such as the British question time process, which I quite enjoyed. I saw it when that great liberal, Mr Tony Blair, was the Prime Minister—