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

The issue here is that we have a Procedure Committee report that says, farcically, that the idea of all primary questions being put on notice to the ministers of the day should be considered and put around to other senators and members for consultation. That is a farce. That is a holiday for ministers who do not get questions. They can take a holiday break at question time. Those ministers who do not get a question during the day can take a picnic. That is ridiculous. Here we have dorothy dixers from the government of the day with advance warning to the ministers of the day, and look what you get. Here we have a situation where the Procedure Committee says, ‘Look, it’s a good idea to consider having all the questions from this chamber being provided on advance notice by 11 o’clock to the ministers.’ What an absolute joke. I have never heard anything as stupid as this in my entire life.

The whole idea of question time is to make sure that ministers and the government of the day are held to account. The whole idea is to keep them on their toes; to keep them fresh; to hold them to account. I do not think that this is a good idea at all. I will read what it says in the report under ‘Restructuring question time’:

The committee has considered proposals to restructure question time with the aim of making it a more effective mechanism for seeking the accountability of the executive government to the Parliament.

Here is the proposal:

All primary questions to be placed on a Question Time Notice Paper by 11 am.

That is all the questions, so they will already know what the questions are going to be before they even start. I have been watching things a little bit here. Are you sure that you want Conroy’s laptop to be opened up, to spill out pat answers to your questions? Why don’t we just get him to turn around his PC to show us all?