Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, a point of order was raised. You failed to rule on it. You simply responded, as I understand it, by saying that the minister had three seconds left. Mr President, I also ask you to give very serious consideration as to whether the change to sessional orders, made some time ago now, requiring direct relevance by a minister in answering a question has ever been applied or has had any significance in changing the way question time has been conducted since. Mr President, many times recourse is had to the precedent. But the problem was question time was turning into a farce. That is why the Senate took a deliberate decision to change the sessional orders to require ministers to be directly relevant. I would invite you to give serious consideration to ruling in accordance with that which the Senate voted for—namely, for ministers to be directly relevant.