Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the behest of the government, on Tuesday the standing orders were changed. Because the debate was gagged I was unable to speak in the debate. As Deputy Chairman of the Procedure Committee, I think it is important I place on record my view of what the government did, particularly in reducing the time allotted for the debate on matters of public importance from two hours to one hour. The Chief Opposition Whip pointed out in the adjournment debate on Tuesday that the Procedure Committee had considered the submission made to it to reduce the time allotted for matters of public importance and the Procedure Committee had rejected the idea. The reason is that historically the Procedure Committee has always looked after backbenchers, and preserved the time allotted to backbenchers to speak. Indeed, it has expanded the time that backbenchers have to speak.

Some statistics were placed before the parliament by the Manager of Opposition Business, the member for Grayndler, that showed that last year there were 50 MPIs and 13 lasted more than 60 minutes but, of those, six MPIs went past 60 minutes by only a minute and a half. So the situation was not being abused by backbenchers. It was not being abused by the Independents.

It does not take much to realise the motive behind what the government is doing: this is an attack particularly on the Independents in cutting back their opportunity to speak in the parliament in an election year. It is an attack, I suspect, that has emanated in particular from some National Party members of the parliament who are paranoid about Independents taking over their seats at the next election, and this is something that I think the government was quite wrong in picking up. The opposition has committed to overturning that. An MPI is a pretty benign debate that takes place on a regular basis, and we as a parliament should not be winding back the time or the number of members who can participate in an MPI debate. This is something that has been carried since Federation.

This is not the only time the parliament has changed the standing orders. As a member of the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in the last parliament, I took on the member for Mackellar and ensured the exclusion of the press from a committee hearing because I had particular concerns, and I relied on the standing orders in that regard. What did the member for Mackellar do? She ran off to the Leader of the House and, in effect, cabinet agreed to change the standing orders and no longer allow individual members to exclude the press in terms of deliberations in questioning. That is what happens when this government does not like something it can be exposed on: it changes it. (Time expired)