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.
Thursday’s mayhem was instructive. It could provide valuable data about the nature of the problem.
The disorder did not occur during Question Time with a capital QT. Technically Question Time had been suspended to allow debate on a motion put by the Leader of the Opposition, Dr John Hewson, to censure the Prime Minister, Paul Keating, over the sports rorts affair. The instructive point is that the disorder occurred during question time with a small qt. It occurred during the time normally set aside for Question Time, when the public gallery and the press gallery were expecting a Question Time. This is important. The politicians were clearly playing to the audience, irrespective of the name of the play. The play could have been King Lear, Hamlet, A Matter of Public Importance or Question Time. It did not matter.
The effect of the audience, both in the building and electronically to the nation, was profound. The parliamentarians knew that this was the time that media eyes would be watching, and acted accordingly. The precise parliamentary format of the performance was immaterial.
Whenever a Minister is in strife, or a leader looks fragile or some scandal is afoot the magnetism and expectancy of Question Time is irresistible: a gladiatorial contest is about to take place. On this analogy recent parliamentary reforms have missed the mark. It is still a gladiatorial contest even if some of the key gladiators take the day off. It is still a gladiatorial contest even if it is televised.
The adversary nature of politics is such that certain amount of raucous behaviour is inevitable. The important point is to ensure it does not break down to the unseemly spectacle seen on Thursday. The central cause for that breakdown must lay at the feet of the Speaker, Stephen Martin. On Thursday he allowed incessant interjections from government back-benchers during Dr Hewson’s speech, but when Mr Keating spoke he put the main Opposition interjector in the sin bin for an hour.
Incidentally, there was an irony in that. The sin bin was introduced this year in an attempt to make Parliament more ruly. Instead of naming an MP and suspending him or her for a day or more under a vote of the House, as under previous Standing Orders, he was sin-binned under direct order of the Speaker.
In doing this, the Speaker received vigorous allegations of bias from the Opposition — allegations which carried some substance. Certainly, the public thought so. The public gallery, for the first time in long memory, applauded.
Thursday’s events reveal the heart of the problem. It is the quality of the Speaker. While ever the Speaker remains a member of one or other of the major parties he or she will not be able to bring true impartiality to the job. That said, it is not easy to create an independent Speaker, though it is easier now than in the past. In Britain where the House of Commons has more than 600 members, it is easier for the person elected Speaker to resign from his or her political party and act with complete independence. One seat in 600 is not significant. Moreover in a geographically compact place like Britain it is easier for MPs in neighbouring electorates to pick up the electoral work generated in the Speaker’s electorate.
Australia’s House of Representatives was increased to 148 Members in the early 1980s. Still, one in 148 could be critical in a tight election. And after a close election if the numbers are tight, every seat under the Whip’s control makes life easier.
At present, any Speaker who acts robustly and independently to enforce Standing Orders faces the sack from his or her party. It means the Speaker treats the Government more leniently. Government Ministers are allowed to waffle in answer to Dorothy Dixers from Government MPs and stonewall incisive questions from the Opposition. An independent Speaker would silence the wafflers and permit as many supplementary questions as necessary to get a proper answer to the incisive questions.
That will not happen under present arrangements. And while it does not happen, Oppositions will detect unfairness and protest in the only way minorities can — noisily.
And while the noise persists, good government gets drowned out.