Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister, at a doorstop today, said that the Commonwealth Bank AWA bought out several award conditions. Well, 46 is not ‘several’. That is why I was entitled to ask my question in full and entitled to ask that question without interruption. You required me, on two separate occasions, to not complete that list. Completing that list, Mr Speaker, was entirely consistent with standing orders.

Question time is the only occasion in the House when the opposition has the opportunity to hold the government to account. When the government is not held to account, the Australian community suffer. What do we know about the Prime Minister and his industrial relations legislation? He will do anything, say anything, mislead on anything, hide anything or not disclose anything to avoid the adverse implications of his legislation. He tries to pretend that there is no adverse circumstance for take-home pay and conditions and that there is no adverse circumstance for penalty rates, leave loadings, shift allowances, public holiday penalty rates and the like. We had the opportunity in question time today to hold him to account and, because of your ruling, we were not able to avail ourselves of that opportunity. Your ruling needs to be dissented from accordingly. It is absolutely essential, when the Prime Minister fails or refuses to give answers at question time, that the opposition be entitled to hold him to account.

Mr Speaker, my dissent from your ruling needs to be put in the context of question time. Since the House came back for this session on 8 August, we have found it increasingly difficult to hold the government to account because of the rulings that you have made, of which this is one. I did a calculation, with the help of the parliamentary research service, to find out in the course of question time how many warnings you had been issued and how many removals from the chamber there had been in accordance with standing order 94(a), because this is the context into which your ruling today falls. If I have got my calculation right as to today’s warnings and suspensions under standing order 94(a)—

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