Significant reforms have taken place in the Federal Parliament in the past four years, but last Thursday it was still a whiteboard jungle. Many of the reforms were hailed as major steps to lift the quality of debate in Parliament to produce meaningful Question Times.
The televising of Parliament was seen as a way of civilising Parliament. With the television cameras beaming down, it was argued, MPs would act with more decorum. Far from it. They were on show and the behaved like showbiz personalities. Sitting hours were changed. Committees systems were changed. Electronic voting is mooted. With the move in 1988 to the bigger House, the majesty of the architecture did not reflect in the quality of the debate.
In the past month, what was seen as fundamental changes to Question Time were made in the wake of the Blewett report. Instead of all Ministers and the Prime Minister attending, a roster system was applied. The Prime Minister attends on Monday and Thursday and other Ministers attend on roster. The aim was to free the Prime Minister to attend to other matters of national importance and to enable MPs to target particular Ministers on other days to seek and presumably receive genuine answers to genuine questions seeking information about matters of public importance.
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