STANDING ORDERS

February 12, 2008

Madam Deputy Speaker, I take this opportunity to offer my congratulations on your elevation to that new position. I certainly welcome the opportunity to speak on the proposed changes to the standing orders.

The announcement by the Leader of the House on 18 December last year was pure doublespeak. He said that for the first time since Federation the parliament will regularly sit five days a week. Any reasonable person would assume that we would have a question time and that the normal functions of the House would continue five days a week. He did not say that the fifth day was, in fact, a clayton’s sitting. He said that the parliament would sit more days, allowing greater accountability and scrutiny. But there is no accountability in a clayton’s sitting day. There is no extra scrutiny in a clayton’s sitting day. He said that the Rudd government was committed to parliamentary reform to ensure greater accountability. If the government were really committed to greater accountability it would welcome the opportunity to respond to the concerns that would be raised in a question time in the House on a Friday. It would welcome the opportunity to state the case of the government as to why the measures it proposed or the responses it made were appropriate. But on a Friday we will not have a question time.

As a member of this House I have frequently noted that it is really important to look at what the Australian Labor Party do and not listen to what they say. To see if their Friday sitting day will be as effective as they claim it will be, you only have to look at what their performance on a Thursday is like. I did a bit of research on Labor’s performance on a Thursday sitting day. I happened to chance on a particular date, which was 20 September last year. There was a division at 4.46 on 20 September last year. Last year in this place there were some 60 members. I thought, ‘How many members of the Australian Labor Party turned up for the division at 4.46 on 20 September 2007?’ With 60 members you would think it was probably reasonable to have 55. There would have been a few away and so on and so forth. It was not 55. You would think that 50 would have been a reasonable number. It was not 50. Was it 45 perhaps? It was not 45. Forty-four members turned up for the division on the Thursday. If roughly one-third are not bothering to turn up for a division on a Thursday, it begs the question: how many people would be bothering to turn up in this place, at a cost of $1 million a day, on a Friday? One-third might be in the Qantas Club lounge or wherever they are when they are on important other business outside of this House. Forty-four out of 60 were here on 20 September last year. If they could not be bothered turning up on a Thursday, how could we reasonably expect them to turn up on a Friday, that clayton’s sitting day?

Members have canvassed a whole range of issues—privilege, accountability, giving the taxpayer value for money and what constituents can rightly expect in the representation that they receive when this House is sitting. I believe that the changes proposed by Labor do not reflect what the public heard when that statement was made. I believe the public heard that they were getting five full sitting days, value for their taxpayers’ money, a question time and a fully functioning parliament—they were not going to be seeing this half-baked proposal that currently stands before us. I commend the amendments proposed by the opposition. I certainly would be very keen to ensure that the government reconsiders the current plan that it has on the table.