Bob McMullan (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Federal/State Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to speak on this matter of how these particular consideration in detail arrangements are being handled. I have never heard or seen a set of arrangements so designed to prevent people getting information rather than to facilitate them. It is true that the parliamentary secretary should be entitled to expect members to say, ‘I have concluded all the questions I have on that particular section,’ and then expect the parliamentary secretary to respond. I realise the standing orders cannot force him to respond, but it is the only sensible, reasonable and normal thing to do—for example, I have some questions to raise about COAG. Why you would want to answer COAG questions in the middle of questions about Kirribilli I cannot imagine.

So it is perfectly reasonable for the parliamentary secretary to say at the end of five minutes, ‘Is that the end of all the questions in that area?’ and if not for the person to go on until they are concluded. It is totally unreasonable to say, ‘Go for 40 minutes and then I will tell you what I am going to say about Kirribilli, about COAG’—about any other matter that someone might come along and raise. So let us try and get the procedure a little more cooperative, get all the questions in one particular section and then get such responses as we have and then go on to the next section, and I think we might do a bit better.

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