Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

I do rise to second these amendments moved by the Manager of Opposition Business. Before a start, I congratulate you, Mr Speaker, on your election yesterday to Speaker, again, with bipartisan support. I think that says a lot about the respect you have in this chamber.

Mr Speaker, I'll start by paraphrasing something you said yesterday that I thought was quite important—I won't quote you because I can't remember the exact words. You spoke about the importance of this chamber to our parliamentary democracy—how important democracy is and how important this chamber is. And you said that you would look to protect and strengthen the democratic processes in this chamber. I firmly believe that's your thought process and that's what you would like this chamber to do. As the Manager of Opposition Business said, there are many things in what the Leader of the House has proposed here that we do support, but there are some things here that will not strengthen parliamentary democracy; they will, in fact, weaken it.

Before I start speaking on the amendments that we are talking about today, I will give some context. Even in the last parliament, some of the changes that were made to the standing orders then by the current Leader of the House didn't protect parliamentary democracy but actually weakened parliamentary democracy in this place. Two that I remember were the changes to the standing orders for the suspension of standing orders and the process of how that works. New members may not be aware that how it used to work when you suspended standing orders was that debate, that process, would happen immediately. The government moved that process be deferred. You lose the impact and you lose the importance of what you're trying to suspend standing orders over when those things are deferred.

The other thing that happened in the last parliament was the change in the standing orders so that legislation could be rushed through. The government put in the proposal that, if things were important, they needed to be moved quickly. It was basically a gag order, and what we saw in the last parliament, really for the first time, and it happened more often than not, was that important legislation was gagged. There was a time limit on it and it stopped, and the legislation went through without necessarily the thorough parliamentary processes and the checks and balances that happened in previous parliaments.

I think this is what's happening again with some of these standing orders that are being proposed today, especially in relation to the questions. I'm going to be really optimistic. I'm going to have the attitude that people on the government side and on the crossbenches are now reading through the amendments and they're going to support this. We saw a lot of goodwill yesterday and they heard your words when you said that you want to protect and strengthen parliamentary process and parliamentary democracy, and I think that they will agree with the Manager of Opposition Business and his amendments, when they read them, because these amendments will do exactly that. They're going to protect and strengthen parliamentary process. There was goodwill and the optimism shown in that chamber yesterday at the start of the new parliament, and I know that the government, when they were elected—not the last time but the time before—wanted to increase parliamentary transparency. They wanted the sun to shine in, and I think that that's what these amendments will do.

Let's just go through a couple of them. I just want to pick up on some of the more important ones. Question time changes are really important. I think that the supplementary question amendments of the Manager of Opposition Business are exceptionally important. This is what happens in the Senate. This is not earth-shattering, and I'm sure the government, when they were in opposition, would have felt this. You might be surprised, but sometimes, when you've asked a question of a minister, you don't really feel as though they've answered the question, and you would like to have the opportunity just to reinforce or to follow up with some extra availability for the minister to answer the question more clearly. The great thing is how good that would be for strengthening parliamentary democracy, so I think the supplementary question idea is a great idea. I know how well the Leader of the House answers his questions and I'm sure that, if you gave him the opportunity to double up and explain his answer even better by asking him a supplementary question, he'd enjoy that. I'm sure he may well change his mind on this amendment and support it to get the opportunity of getting a supplementary question and maybe giving the clarity to an answer that he may not have given, even though he may have thought he had.

As the Manager of Opposition Business also highlighted, the other amendment was a really important process to do with questions, in the sense that the amount of questions that were asked in the last parliament wasn't high by historical standards. We're putting in a proposal here that there be at least eight questions by opposition members in question time. Again, I don't think that's earth-shattering. If ministers are happy with their decisions and happy with how things are going, you would think that they would be happy having more opportunity to get questions from the opposition to explain what's going on, and to have a cap of eight a day doesn't sound a lot to me. Going back to your words, Speaker, it is all about strengthening parliamentary process. I congratulate the Manager of Opposition Business on his appointment, and I know that, in every chat that I've had with the Manager of Opposition Business about his new role, the only words he mentions to me are that he wants to protect and strengthen parliamentary process. Again, having a minimum of eight a day is a very modest ask.

I know that an issue was raised about the Federation Chamber. The Federation Chamber is important, and one of the things we do support the government on is the constituency statements within the Federation Chamber. That's important and gives the opportunity, especially for a lot of new members, to talk about your electorate and people in your electorate and things happening in your electorate. We support that. However, in the last parliament, we saw a lot of things flicked through the Federation Chamber and some important bills were debated up there. The important bills in this place should be debated in here, so putting up changes to this standing order for motions moving something to the Federation Chamber is, again, a very modest request.

The other thing the opposition has been growing concerned about is those who fail to respond with written questions. This is really common in the Senate. In Senate estimates, if a minister gets asked a written question, there is a process for how that is answered and the timeliness of that, and we're seeing that there's no timeliness with that. So, in this amendment ministers are compelled to talk about the reasons they may be delaying answers to questions and having overdue responses to questions.

We agree, we are supporting—again, the bipartisan thing, because this is not all opposition to the proposals by the government today—that in talking to bills the time should be reduced to five minutes. We just think that will increase efficiency and timeliness in the chamber. I think that in talking to a bill most people would be able to say what they need to say in 10 minutes and not 15.

I want to finish off on a change to the name of a House committee. A House committee in the last parliament included the phrase 'resources and northern Australia'. We on this side of the chamber are happy to talk about resources; we on this side are happy to talk about northern Australia. In my role as shadow trade minister, I'm very happy to talk about those two things, too. The export powerhouse of this country is the resources sector. Northern Australia plays an important part in that resources story. It's a very successful story. So, in the House committee that was formed and that existed in the last parliament, we thought it was very important to have that focus of language. Again, I'm sure you have been up there to northern Australia, Speaker. Whether it be iron ore, gas resources, coal resources or agricultural products, I remind this House—and new members, who may not be aware—that coal, iron ore, gas and food are the four biggest exports of this country. Resources is an important sector of our export sector, and northern Australia is a very important part of that. So, hopefully we'll get the opportunity to move a motion later to make sure we have a House committee with the terms 'resources' and 'northern Australia' included.

I will finish my seconding of this motion with great optimism, Speaker, remembering your words yesterday that we want to protect and we want to strengthen parliamentary process and parliamentary accountability in this chamber. I think when people get a good chance to read and digest these amendments moved by the Manager of Opposition Business there's going to be a light bulb moment on our side as well as the other side of the chamber. These are good amendments. They are going to protect and strengthen parliamentary democracy in this chamber and therefore this country, and I highly recommend them to the House.

See this speech in context