James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

On the question of urgency, I have empathy for Senator Mulholland and Senator Smith. We've all been there, as a government backbencher, hoping to get a question in question time, hoping the tactics committee will pick our question, but sometimes we don't get our question up. That can be frustrating; that can be disappointing. But when you're upset about that, when you're angry about that, you've got to direct your frustration to the right place. The people who decide who gets to ask the questions that you're allocated is not the chamber. It's not the opposition, it's not the crossbench and it's not even the Greens. It's your own tactics committee. It's your own leadership. If your colleagues agreed with you that your questions were genuinely urgent, they would have given you one of the many questions that you could've asked this week—one of the three questions that you had this week. As touched as I am by your efforts to fight for the ancient right to ask dixers, I can say they're not convincing anyone.