Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

Really? Maybe all of the frontbench will have laptops out and there will just be this pat reading out of answers. I have never heard of something so absurd. In actual fact, if you think about what is being proposed, it is a backward step. Do you know why? This Senate can already place questions on notice anytime it wants. So why do you want to stage question time so that all questions are now to be on notice? It is a crazy proposition and a backward step. If someone says that we should be following New Zealand in this regard, I will go he! It is a joke. I cannot believe it.

I read it last night at 11.30 while the Comcar driver was driving me home. I read this report and thought: ‘I can’t believe what I’ve just read here. They want to put all questions on notice.’ I read further and found that up to six supplementary questions can be put without notice. But the minister has already gotten the gist of where the questions are going and can spend from 11 o’clock, to 12 o’clock, to one o’clock, to two o’clock—three hours—preparing pat answers on their computers. The whole frontbench will have computers. What a wonderful idea! This is absolutely crazy. To give others a chance, they can talk now or they can talk next week. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted.