Speakers call time on MPs’ questions

Three former speakers of the House of Representatives have backed an inquiry into question time.

Former speaker Harry Jenkins has backed an inquiry into question time.

Three former speakers of the House of Representatives — Anna Burke, Harry Jenkins and Peter Slipper — have backed an inquiry into question time and say the daily parliamentary event should be reformed.

The speakers during the Rudd-Gillard Labor government have declared there should be stronger onus on ministers to stick to the relevance of questions without turning the attack on the opposition.

The Australian revealed yesterday there would be a parliamentary inquiry into question time — backed by Labor and Liberal MPs — that will consider whether Dorothy Dixers should be limited or axed.

It will also consider whether there should be stricter rules requiring ministers to be more relevant in answering questions, whether question time’s rules are too complicated, and whether the forum should include questions from the public.

Mr Slipper said Australia should emulate the question time model in Britain’s House of Commons, where there are shorter questions, shorter answers and a stricter requirement on relevance.

He said the answers to questions should be no longer than one minute, compared with the current four-minute limit.

“The questions should be shorter in duration. The answers to questions should be shorter in duration,” Mr Slipper told The Australian.

“There should be more supplementary questions. And it is very important the answer is directly relevant.

“This would allow a large amount of answers in a short amount of time.”

Mr Jenkins said there should be stronger rules enforcing ministers to directly answer questions.

“There is a whole amount of rules in the standing orders about questions but there is only one rule about answers, which is then interpreted in a very strange parliamentary way about what is relevant,” Mr Jenkins said.

“That has always been the real problem. If question time is about keeping the government to account, any observer would be shocked about the amount of time where you talk about the opposition.”

Mr Jenkins said he was “open minded” about calls to axe Dorothy Dixers, although he was not convinced the case had yet been made.

Ms Burke said she thought Dorothy Dixers should be kept but the rules should force backbenchers to write their own questions, rather than being given pre-written ones by a minister.

“I don’t know whether it is reasonable for the government of the day to be locked out of asking questions. Surely they should have the right to use the parliament as anyone else does,” Ms Burke said.

“They need to ensure the questions are framed in a way that is an actual question. There is something there to answer, it is not just a frolic.”

The procedures committee, chaired by Liberal National MP Ross Vasta, will this week finalise the terms of the inquiry, which will seek public submissions.