Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Bill Hayden was not the most recent example, I can assure, Leader of the House. The most recent examples include people like Melissa Parke, the member for Fremantle, who has written that imposing time limits on questions and answers would perhaps constrain the tendency for questions and answers to be used for point scoring. Bob McMullan, the member for Fraser, believes that no answer should be longer than four minutes. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, the member for Lalor, argued in opposition to limit answers to questions during question time to four minutes. Wayne Swan, now the Treasurer, the member for Lilley, argued in opposition that time limits should apply. All of these opinions were given in speeches to the chamber, applications to the Procedure Committee and responses to suggestions and all were from the Labor Party.

The Speaker of the House, Mr Jenkins, whom we all revere, has also expressed his belief that it would be helpful if answers were shorter. Even the Clerk of the House, who is usually like the sphinx in terms of expressing a view on any political matter, noted in a submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure during the last parliament that ‘time limits would reduce the risk of more prolonged answers, answers which are more likely to give rise to challenges on the ground of relevance’. And ain’t that the truth.

The reason I am so much at the dispatch box during question time drawing the attention of the House and the Speaker to the question of relevance is because the answers go for so long that there is no doubt that the minister will stray from relevance and their answer will go into the irrelevancies that we have to put up with every day in this chamber. I would most like not to have to be at the dispatch box regularly pointing out the irrelevance of the answers to questions given by the Prime Minister in particular. You can save the chamber and the public from having to put up with me at the dispatch box by simply keeping your answers short and being relevant.

See this speech in context