Qld Speaker extends olive branch over changes to parliamentary scrutiny

Speaker Curtis Pitt has extended an olive branch to the state opposition for a fresh review of the decade-old committee system responsible for holding Queensland’s sole house of parliament to account.

The comments come as the man charged with running parliament for the past 19 years told a budget estimates hearing he did not think the process was working as well as envisaged when the system was established and “may have gotten even worse”.

Queensland’s parliamentary committee system has been largely unchanged since 2011. Opposition parties and other authoritative figures suggest it might be time for a rethink.Credit: Robert Rough

Two weeks of hearings for the 2022 state budget estimates began on Tuesday, with Pitt, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, Treasurer Cameron Dick and Tourism Minister Stirling Hinchliffe first to be quizzed about their portfolio areas.

Within the first half-hour, long-serving Clerk of Parliament Neil Laurie said that while the 2011 overhaul, which allowed committees to scrutinise legislation, had been a “huge success”, the accountability part of their function had a “long way to go”.

“I do think that what we’d have to do is review what’s happened since 2011: what’s worked and what hasn’t worked,” Laurie said. “For example, I don’t think, in a general sense, the estimates process that we’re having is working as well as what was envisaged in 2011.”

“The system that was in place prior to 2011 may in fact be better in some respects, because things may have gotten even worse in terms of the overall estimates process — but I don’t have a magic bullet and I think it’s the subject for a review [by the committee of the legislative assembly].”

The budget scrutiny sessions follow months of intense focus on government accountability, culminating in findings from Goss-era public sector reform chief Professor Peter Coaldrake of an internal culture beset by bullying and short-term vision, and a government trivialising committees.

A 2016 review of the committee system heard myriad suggested improvements but held back from recommending many due to significant changes only five years earlier during a Bligh-government overhaul. It deemed that the best approach was to allow it to “slowly evolve and develop”.

Asked by Brisbane Times whether enough time had now elapsed, Pitt suggested it had, adding that committee operations were more crucial for good legislative process in Queensland than elsewhere.

“As a parliament, we should not be afraid to regularly review our processes to ensure that parliament can operate in an accountable and transparent way,” he said in a statement.

“For any review of the parliamentary committee system to be successful and worthwhile, it needs committed bipartisan support. I would only support such a review on this basis.”

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli has previously been critical of what he described as a “broken” budget estimates process. He also called for a review, including possible changes to the number of questions allowed from government MPs and a move to non-government chairs.

“If the premier truly has listened to Professor Coaldrake, this year’s estimates won’t resemble the farce of last year,” he told Brisbane Times. “What was once a process of scrutiny has become a protection racket for underperforming ministers by partisan chairs.”

Crisafulli was not drawn on whether he would commit to the bipartisan approach flagged by Pitt. The Greens, Katter’s Australian Party and independent MPs have also repeatedly raised similar concerns about estimates and the broader committee structure.

Analysis of the first week of 2018 estimates hearings by the Greens’ Maiwar MP, Michael Berkman, found 42.3 per cent of committees’ time was spent on government questions to them, with the other half taken up by opposition questions, and the remaining 8.4 per cent spread among others.

Former Labor Speaker John Mickel, now an adjunct associate professor at the Queensland University of Technology, said while he understood the need to pull punches in 2016, the committee system should undergo five-yearly reviews as the corruption watchdog does. “It should never be set and forget,” he said.

Corruption-buster Tony Fitzgerald’s vision of a “comprehensive system” of committees was not considered fully realised until the Bligh-government overhaul, but has been largely unchanged since. Laurie had previously raised concerns and suggestions in a submission to the regular Crime and Corruption Commission review last year.

Mickel has also suggested the estimates process could be chaired by a rotation of the Speaker and deputies to help ensure it runs smoother, and he called for a removal of ministers from the committee of the legislative assembly.

While unable to make recommendations about the operation of parliament in his recent review of public sector culture and accountability, Coaldrake wrote at length about “strengthening the underpinning system”, including committees and estimates.

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