Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

The principle of accountability is clear. It is not a notional concept; it is a real concept.

... ministers must be responsible to the Parliament because the Parliament is the people’s house - that’s where the Executive of the Government answers to the people through the Parliament.

So said Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister, on 2UE on 5 December 2007. The Prime Minister himself said ministers must be accountable in the parliament. And what is the first decision of the new government in this parliament? It is to remove question time from sitting Fridays. For the first time since question times were inserted into the standing orders in 1950, we have a government that is scheduling sitting days without question times. We stand ready to come here on any day that is scheduled, but on that day we want the Prime Minister and the ministers to be accountable for their actions and their words.

I want to correct some of the misinformation being spread around by the Leader of the House. Let me be very clear. Since 1970, in election years the parliament has on average sat 57 days with 54 question times. In non-election years it has sat on average 69 days with 66 question times. Under the Howard government, in non-election years we averaged 70 days with 68 question times, which means that the Leader of the House has already deliberately misled the chamber about the record on question times—

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