Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

That is right: Senator Conroy is a terrific exponent of how not to be relevant. As has been canvassed, the temporary order that came into play added the word ‘directly’ before relevant, and I quote the definition of the word ‘directly’:

1. in a direct line, way, or manner; straight.

2. without delay; immediately.

3. presently.

4. absolutely; exactly; precisely.

Adding the word ‘directly’ before ‘relevant’ does significantly and substantively change the standing order. I was concerned that there was perhaps the hint in the statement by the President that there was not much of a difference between relevance and direct relevance. But more concerning than that is the sentence that follows that in the President’s statement which says:

Provided that an answer is directly addressing the subject matter of a question, it is not within the power of the chair to require a minister to provide a particular answer.

As has been canvassed, there has never been a subject matter test in the standing orders or in a temporary order. It has never been the case in this place that, as long as an answer is in the ballpark and is related to the subject matter, that is sufficient. It is not sufficient. It may be helpful, it may be nice and it may be good that an answer is on the subject matter—you would hope that an answer would at least be on the subject matter—but that is not sufficient. The answer needs to be directly relevant—and directly relevant not to any vague concept but to the question itself. It is a very different proposition, and I think this is one that the President should very carefully examine, because this particular concept of addressing the subject matter is essentially a new creation; it is not founded in the standing orders or the temporary orders. If you did apply that particular test of subject matter, each and every utterance from Senator Conroy’s mouth in question time would be found to be within the standing orders, and I think we all know it is not.

As has been indicated by my colleague Senator Brandis, this is not a matter which is raised lightly. It is a matter which the opposition gave very serious consideration to before taking the decision to seek leave to raise these matters. I would encourage the President to consider his statement of this morning alongside this afternoon’s contributions. All of us want to see this place work well. All of us want to see government held to account. Indeed, I suspect there are even members of the government itself who recognise that executive accountability as practised in this chamber is for the overall benefit of good governance; it keeps governments on their toes and makes sure that they are more thoughtful and deliberative in what they do. So the opposition would encourage the President to seriously study the contributions this afternoon.