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

We might have to give Bob Katter, the member for Kennedy, an exception. Otherwise, he would not be able to ever make it.

In terms of the other areas of reform, we have noticed that ministerial statements have burgeoned to such an extent that the matter of public importance debate—except for today—has been pushed further back on the agenda of the day until it is no longer at a relevant time. The matter of public importance is described in The House of Representatives Practice as one of the principle avenues available to private members. In the last term of the previous government there were 12 ministerial statements, taking up less than three hours of parliamentary time. But in the 20 months of the current government there have been 93 ministerial statements, taking up over 37 hours of parliamentary time. And they have been on some of the most important subjects imaginable, including issues like the runway end safety area at Sydney airport and the accessibility of cinemas! I am sure that the accessibility of cinemas and the runway end safety area at Sydney airport could easily have been dealt with through speeches by the ministers, by press releases or any other way that they wished to do so.

But ministerial statements are becoming a tool, which, as the Leader of the House well knows, is the reason there have been so many. There have been 93 in 20 months that have taken up 37 hours of parliamentary time. We know that it is being done deliberately to push the matters of public importance back in the day, so we propose that standing orders be changed to put the matter of public importance immediately after question time.

We also propose that there be new ‘take note’ sessions created in the chamber—not unlike the Senate ‘take note’ sessions—where answers in question time can be remarked upon by private members after question time. So, for half an hour after each question time, private members—three on either side—would be able to speak for five minutes each on answers that they had heard in question time and wished to respond to. For example, a local member might ask a question in question time, as the member for Berowra did yesterday when he asked a question about infrastructure in his electorate. He might then choose to respond to the extremely irrelevant answer from the minister for transport, where he basically simply bellowed hysterically across the chamber. The member for Berowra might want seriously to respond to that after question time in a ‘take note’ session.

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