John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before proceeding to questions without notice, I have a brief statement to make. Senators will be aware that on 13 November 2008 the Senate adopted the third report of the 2008 Senate Standing Committee on Procedure and that as a result there will be a trial of new rules for question time during the last two weeks of sittings for this year, beginning today. The new rules involve three major changes to question time: the answers to primary questions will be limited to two minutes instead of four; two supplementary questions will be allowed to the questioner, with the questions and answers limited to one minute each; and answers will be required to be directly relevant to each question. I seek the cooperation of all senators in ensuring that the new rules are given a fair trial and work as smoothly as possible.