Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to comment on the changes to standing orders and express my disappointment that the Procedure Committee did not get an opportunity from the Leader of the House to look at them formally. The proposal to change the MPI was in a submission, I understand, from the Clerk when we were looking at the report encouraging an interactive chamber, but the Procedure Committee did not pick up the recommendations at that time.

What have we done? We are going to limit the debate to an hour and we are going to restrict the number of speakers. Are we doing it so that we can save the time of the House? No, we are not, because we are restricting it to an hour and, to quote the Leader of the House:

The government is proposing to make that six speakers: three on each side.

So we are proposing that there be six speakers, three on each side. As you would know, Mr Speaker, most MPIs do not have six speakers; they only have four. Why do they sometimes have more than four? It is because the Independents jump up and wish to express their views, representing their constituents. And why shouldn’t they? But that only occurred last year on 13 of 48 occasions, when the debate went longer than an hour. If we look at the debate that obviously has offended the government, we can see that the Independents did jump up: they jumped up and wanted to express views about petrol prices. Oh, how outrageous! They also expressed their views in the debate on aviation security. How outrageous that the Independents should wish to express views about that! Or—to go through the list—on climate change, rural policy, climate change again, the Australian economy, and the Australian environment and water supplies.

I have the view that Independents should have some rights here. As the Chief Opposition Whip, I have no knowledge about when they may wish to jump up or not jump up. But what does this measure do? It makes sure that if an Independent member wants to now participate in an MPI they will be treated like a second-class citizen. They will only get five minutes.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You could give them the whole MPI.

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed, the Independents have moved an MPI, Minister, if you had only observed. But you have not saved any time. Whereas many MPIs now finish in 50 minutes, you have guaranteed that they will now go the full hour. I promise you that. And at what benefit? Why would the government pick up a recommendation that had been considered and, because not adopted, one can presume rejected by the Procedure Committee? Why would they do that? They obviously do not like Independents standing up expressing their views on issues that concern ordinary Australians—a particular brand of ordinary Australians; ones that live in rural and regional Australia. This proposal has been passed on party lines with the government voting to ensure that Independents will not have the same opportunities that they have enjoyed ever since MPIs were invented. This is the first government that has moved so directly and so viciously at the rights of Independent members in this House to participate in matters of public importance. If you were going to save time and allow more government business to go through, perhaps there is an argument. But you will not. Under the proposal you have adopted you will be spending more time on MPIs.

The Chairman of the Procedure Committee, the member for McPherson, says, ‘We will look at it.’ I will bet you pounds to peanuts that there will be no change now. I say to the government: the Independents can be as critical of us in the opposition as they are of the government, but what is the harm in listening to the criticism? Don’t they have a duty to their constituents to make their voices heard? You have just made it that much more difficult. (Time expired)