The future of the House of Reps
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The Parliamentary reforms agreed by the (current) Government and Opposition and the independents will, indeed, revolutionise Question Time. For the tiny segment of the population who actually pay attention to Question Time, that is perhaps a good thing. Or perhaps not. If you’ve ever watched Senate Question Time, you’ll be aware of the profound limits of tedium that can be reached within a tightly-constrained format of question-and-answer in which most of the questions are political and most of the answers are read from talking points rushed through as quickly as humanly possible. It will be amusing, however, to watch the operation of the new rule requiring questions and answers to use “best endeavours not to use notes.” “The preference is no notes,” the agreement points out, although the requirement will be reviewed after a limited period. Given the entire structure of Question Time from a government point of view is for ministers to rely heavily on pre-prepared talking points for both their own and Opposition questions, there may be some fine sport to be had as Ministers have to fake their way through an answer sans QTB or PPQ. The leader of the opposition will get a cricket-type “power play” option to ask a supplementary question, a development that can only spice up life for those of us who are desperate enough to cover QT on Twitter. But otherwise the reforms have taken most of the poorer aspects of Senate practice - greater power for committees; the focus on pretty much everything but the business the executive wants to transact — and none of the better aspects, like a rigorous estimates committee process. There was scope for an overhaul of the whole Estimates process in this, eliminating the pointless one-week sessions the Senate conducts for additional Budget estimates late in the year and expanding Additional Estimates sessions to two weeks, and establishing a two-weeks Reps estimates session in-between. But there has been a worthwhile reduction in the number of issue-based committees from 12 to 9, with some subject areas combined, and governments will be required to actually respond to committee reports — hitherto it’s occasionally been deemed convenient for governments of both types to never quite get around to finalising a response on some issues. The establishment of the Parliamentary Budget Office, which Labor has previously agreed with the Greens and Andrew Wilkie, will now definitely go ahead, albeit ensconced in the Parliamentary Library and its funding uncertain, but hopefully more than the pittance the Coalition promised for it in their costings (watch whether an Abbott Government sticks to its $2m PBO funding, which would ensure it was virtually stillborn, or provides decent funding for it). There will also be a Parliamentary Integrity Commission, responsible not just for ethical issues relating to MPs, but the Lobbyists Register, which is currently in the hands of the executive, via Prime Minister and Cabinet. “Enhancements” to the Lobbyists’ Register will also be considered — although the one serious enhancement on which the exercise will be judged will be the inclusion in the register of in-house lobbyists and those working for large accounting and legal firms, who currently escape all scrutiny. Optimistically, the agreement proposes that “further steps to improve Government” will be considered during the course of the Parliamentary term. Don’t count on it: this is as good as the independents will get. It’s a big step in direction of better governance, and may well be the best thing to emerge from this unusual period in which the two major parties are equally powerless to resist demands for reform. |
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32 Comments
Katter gone with Coalition, looks like the other two will go Labor so 76 - 74 to Gillard
If Katter’s gone with the Coalition, doesn’t it make it 76 -74 to Abbott (provided, of course the other two go with him?)
Yes, but if the other two go Labor its 76 - 74 Gillard
If Katter’s gone with the Coalition, doesn’t it make it 76 -74 to Abbott (provided, of course the other two go with him?). Or did you mean ‘gone’ as in ‘finished’?
Perhaps Windsor and Oakeshot are re-considering now. Who knows.
Sorry @Outstanding for the double post. And, yes, I see what you mean… hmmm… one wonders if Bob and the other two have done a deal (I’ll go with the Coalition - keep my people on side, et cetera - you two go with Gillard - we’ll see how it goes, and we can roll them in 12 months, if we have to…)
After bullshitting on for weeks, the Mad Katter has done exactly what I expected him to do.
I wanted him for Speaker. The possibility for really funny decisions on ejecting members.
Katter is a fringe loon. His performance on Q&A last night confirmed it again.
Bernard, the media will no doubt find question time more boring with the move away from the endless mindless bun fight we currently ensure. Nonetheless I suspect the new format will much better serve the interests of healthy democracy.
If you get too bored, you can always switch over to Fox Sports
@Socratease
It would have taken something verging on a miracle for the Mad Katter to have backed Labor – he was always ideologically much closer to the wing nuts than centrists like Oakeshot and Windsor.
What is interesting is how much of his pitch to the media extolled the virtues of Kevin Rudd, who has obviously been using his talks with Katter to pursue his own narcissistic agenda.
Rudd may yet need to be kneecapped for the greater good of Labor – it’s such a shame everything always has to be all about him instead of what is in the interest of his party
A Galaxy poll just released has revealed a 50-50 even split from respondents on whether the remaining two independents will side with the Coalition or Labor.
@Socratease
Re Q&A - it was amazing that Katter was not smart enough to understand the hypocrisy of his bleary eyed concerns about rural suicides when his regular indulgence in homophobic rhetoric does nothing to abate the high suicide rates of LGBT people living in rural areas
It’s hardly surprising that 80% of what comes out of his mouth is somewhat discombobkatulated…um…discombobulated
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/nations-secret-scrawled-on-folder-20100907-14ywr.html
@Acidic: discombobkatulated! You’re on fire today!
There was movement at the Press Club
For the word had passed around
That three wise men had spoken
New consensus here was found
The other wild bush horses
Wallowed deeply in regret
Their coalition blown apart
By the failure of threat
Poor Tony cried fair dinkum
This leaves us gutted to the bone
How could they choose the chestnut
After all the love we’ve shown
As Fat Back chugged another pie
A tear was seen in Andrew’s eye
He’d noticed Malcolm’s quiet glee
As Tony sobbed on bended knee
Three wise men stand above the fray
Smile knowing what they’ve done this day
Sees National interest truly served
With guile their honour yet preserved
With due deference to Banjo Patterson .. I’ll now resist saying I told you soon
INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!
Paul the octopus knew it.
Interesting that Windsor and Oakeshot said that they supported also Labor cause if they supported Coalition they may go back to the poll and the Coalition would probably win.
So did that crocodile, whatever its name is.
Screw the flaky opinion polls, talk to the animals, LOL.
What’s hillarious is the obvious fury of several Murdoch hacks at the press conference … they now realise how massively they over played their hand by pushing so strongly for a return to the polls
So where are all the Crikey trolls now?
over at crikey live
Whats’ the betting that once one of the majors gets a majority in its own right any reforms fought for will be wiped and it will be business as usual in this legalised Mafia.
Interesting day to remember the outcome. Windsor and Oakeshot did not share the opinion that Abbott would win if an election was held again but already someone has decided that that is so. On ABC 24 they had Minchin and now have Joyce , good balance policy not. I wonder if the story in the Australian about the mining tax is as valid as the coalitions costings ? I hope this minority government provides improvement but expect the coalition to do all in its power to bring it down on any pretext. I reckon if it gets past 12 months it should last the full term.
Election worked out perfectly.
Mad Monk doesn’t get his hands on the levers of power and with the Greens and independents holding the ALP to account we’ll be seeing some nice sane laws being made.
Certainly none that give more powers to inept AFP, crush workers rights or waste money on new toys to intercept refugees.
Perhaps we could get our troops out of a war that we should never have entered - and stop Australian lives and money being wasted on slaughtering Afghanis.
Well done Australia - great outcome. Democracy does work.
The Mad Katter is on TV now saying he’ll form his own party, LOL!
7pm, an undisclosed Canberra Restaurant, one misty September night…
A man in a large hat walks in, brushing the beads of condensation from his oilskins.
“I have a reservation for tonight, mate.”
“Certainly Sir - may I have your name?”
“Me names Katter - but me mates call me BobKat”
*polite laughter* “Ha ha. Ah yes - here’s your reservation Sir”
“Katter - Table for one for Party of One. If you’d be so kind as to follow me Sir….”
Interesting comment from Antony Green. He said that the Greens could be taken out of play in the Senate, cause the Coalition could work with the independants to craft the legislation with Labor and then vote for the legislation in the senate, so the Greens dont get a look in.
Bob Brown - make sure you use recycled tissues
I expect the the Opposition under Abbott to look after its own interests whichever way it can, with the short term view of frustrating and destabilizing the government at every opportunity.
Regardless of what he says, Abbott wants another election as soon as he can engineer one.
There is no way that phoney will be opposition leader at the next election.
Despite Limited News best efforts to make a silk purse out of him his preferred PM polling never got out of the 30 percent range showing even lib voters disliked him.
Let’s see how long it takes The Mad Monk to arrive at his next slogan. You know, the Great Big Whatever.
@Socratease
I fear Great Big New Tax will become a perrenial slogan for the CoDependancy because bogans and wing nuts think education gives you cancer and it’s the tooth fairy not taxes that delivers healthcare and infrastructure
Maybe we should coin a new phrase to capture the most important litmus test for any new right wing slogan - Retard Resonance
lol, yeah, sure, sure they will. Liberal and Labor and all Independents all working together harmoniously to craft legislation and cut out the huge Green bloc. That would require… um, co-operation… between sworn class enemies — and large chunks of them too. No more one-upmanship games ever again would be possilbe in the Australian Parliament by this reasoning. Nothing to contrast your policies with the other guy’s, and another election in only 3 years… And perversely that would also be a more democratic and co-operative outcome than we’ve ever seen from them before, so the Greens would presumably still have achieved the desired result — unless you think they are all going to agree to knock down an ETS and then never need the Greens for a horse-trade for any legislation ever again — because Lib and Lab will always agree on everything in future.
And given the huge voter groundswell towards the Greens in both houses (effected in actual seats only in the upper house due to electoral system dysfunctions), don’t you think the electorate might punish the various other parties and independents at the following election for playing such games? STILL no ETS?
If Antony Green actually said that, it’s one of the odder and more offbeat things I’ve ever heard him say.