Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

No, I moved that standing orders be suspended. We have been trying all week to get a straight answer from the minister for the environment about why they have been approving coal projects. We ask a very tight question about it, and we get a minister who talks about renewables, talks about things that happened 15 years ago and talks about anything else other than coal and gas, even though they know it is critical. It is the thing that we are asking about. It is time for straight answers. It is time to answer the question. This is a simple test. We've had it not just this week but year upon year upon year. And it has been Labor and Liberal; this isn't just something that one side does. Every time people come to this place on behalf of the people of this country and try to get a straight answer from a minister, the minister talks about something else. People are sick of it. What we've found out is that it's permissible. It's in the rules to do this, which is why it has gone on for so long. So what we need to do is change the rules, if that's the case. We need to change the rules to require that, when a question is asked, you get the question answered. It may not be the answer that you like, but it is an answer to the question. At the moment, what we know, as we have seen year after year after year, is that, when you ask them a question, they can talk about anything but in their answer. It doesn't matter how tight your question is. It doesn't matter how much preamble you cut off. If you ask a really simple question, you don't get a simple answer.

Ministers have huge power. Ministers of all political stripes have huge power. The point of this place should be to be able to hold them to account and get an answer to how they're using that power, to understand why in the middle of a climate crisis a minister wants to approve new coal and gas projects. But it seems that no matter how simple and straightforward we ask the question, we don't get a straightforward answer about it. People have had enough. So, if it's within the rules to do that, then we've got to change the rules, and that's what this will do. It is very simple. The new words that are proposed to be included are: 'that an answer must directly answer the question'. Most people in this country would probably think that's what question time is for. So I'm calling on the other establishment parties who for years have just dodged the questions that they're asked to now change the rules so that they'll answer the questions. It's a simple test. Are you prepared to answer the question that the people are asking you and give a straight answer?

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