The Coalition will reform Question Time

01/08/10

An elected Coalition Government will move to reform Parliamentary Standing orders in the House of Representatives, Christopher Pyne, Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives said today.

“Our reforms will make Parliamentary Question Time more concise and ensure Ministers are held to account and remain relevant to questions asked,” Mr Pyne said.

“We would seek to introduce four minute cap of the length of answers by Ministers, and a one minute limit to length of questions,” he said.

“We will look to strengthen the definition of ‘relevance’ in the standing orders so Ministers must stay directly relevant to questions and ensure Matter of Public Importance debates follow ‘Question Time’.

When Labor was in Opposition, the then Manager of Opposition Business, Julia Gillard, submitted a detailed submission to the Parliamentary procedures committee that called for:

    The Standing Orders be amended to limit questions asked in question time to one minute and limit answers to question during question time to four minutes.

“Back then Ms Gillard was all for Parliamentary reform and spoke with passion about making proceedings more transparent and improving accountability,” Mr Pyne said.

“However in Government, Ms Gillard lost this reformist zeal. When the Coalition attempted to raise Parliamentary standards during Labor’s first term in Government, Labor shut down the debate.

“It was another broken promise, and a chance for beneficial bipartisan reform was lost.

“A Coalition Government will take real action to ensure Parliamentary proceedings improve, and the Parliament is truly accountable to the people of Australia,” Mr Pyne said.