Questions on Notice Standing Orders

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (17:32): I move:

That the Standing Orders Committee considers and reports on amendments to standing orders to require ministers to provide answers to questions on notice within a period of 30 calendar days.

In speaking to this motion members would be aware that it is an issue I have raised on any number of occasions now for half a dozen years or so. I guess the genesis of this is the concern that the longstanding convention (certainly in this chamber) of ministers responding to questions within a reasonable period of time has now been breached for almost 10 years.

I previously indicated that under previous governments (both and Labor and Liberal), and my experience when I first came into the parliament in the 1980s was under a Labor government and Labor ministers in this chamber, such as attorney-general Sumner and ministers Blevins, Cornwall and others, for all of their failures that might have been highlighted, generally observed the convention of responding within a reasonable length of time to questions that had been placed on notice by non-government members of the Legislative Council.

During the nineties, I know, as a government, we also took seriously the notion of responding within a reasonable period of time to questions on notice. I know, as one of the nominated members of cabinet for some of that period, answers to questions on notice went through a cabinet process, not the full cabinet process but a cabinet minister would look over the proposed responses to questions, which, I am informed, is still the process under this government.

It is fair to say that under the former Labor government in the eighties and the former Liberal government in the nineties, there was no rigid requirement in the standing orders. There may well have been occasions when the former Labor government or the former Liberal government did not comply within a reasonable period of time responding to a difficult question on notice, but, as I said, in the main both Labor and Liberal governments through all of that period have abided by that longstanding convention.

It has been, sadly, this government, and increasingly so this government since 2002 that has just snubbed its nose at that longstanding convention. It has essentially taken the view that there is no standing order requirement or any other on the ministers to answer the questions, and we have the ludicrous position where as at the end of last year there were more than 3,000 unanswered questions on notice, not just in our house but in the House of Assembly as well. In terms of accountability, I remind members that it was their Labor premier who in 2002, in his plan for honesty in government, said:

We will lift standards of honesty, accountability and transparency in government. Secrecy can provide the cover behind which waste, wrong priorities, dishonesty and serious abuse of public office may occur. A good government does not fear scrutiny or openness.

I did not always agree with many of the things that former premier Rann said, but certainly that was a lofty ideal and one with which I am sure we could all agree. Answering questions on notice within a reasonable period of time is part of that openness and transparency principle which should be abided by in terms of government.

What has occurred is that, sadly, many of us are getting to the stage where it is a waste of time putting questions on notice, and so in many cases the only way of getting the information is by lodging hundreds and hundreds of freedom of information requests, and that is a problem in and of itself. We are then criticised by ministers saying how much it costs to respond to freedom of information requests from members because members are too lazy to collect the information themselves.

This government cannot have its cake and eat it too in relation to this particular argument. If they were in a position to actually respond within a certain period of time to questions on notice, then it would take some of the heat out of the issue of increasing numbers of freedom of information requests from members.

I still have questions on notice unanswered from 2002-03. That must be some sort of a world record in terms of just simply ignoring questions on notice. One can go to the parliament's website and see the questions that have been asked in the last 11 or 12 years, those that have been answered and those that have not been. It is a sad testimony that this Labor government has just sought to ignore many of those questions that have been asked.

Most other jurisdictions (not all) do have a requirement in their standing orders for answers to be provided. In New South Wales, it is 35 calendar days. In Victoria, Queensland and the Senate, it is 30 calendar days, and in Western Australia the requirement is nine sitting days. Some of the other jurisdictions do not have requirements, but the majority do place some requirement on providing an answer. Of course, that does not make any judgement about the quality of the answer. The answer still may well not be to the satisfaction of the member who has asked the question, but nevertheless some response has to be provided to the member within that particular period.

Each of the jurisdictions in their own way has tackled it slightly differently. In most of the jurisdictions, a copy of the answer must be provided by the minister's office to the member and to the clerk of the legislative council or to the staff at the same time.

Various jurisdictions, such as the Legislative Council of Victoria, do have detailed procedures in terms of how they are to be processed and handled. They outline in their standing orders a process where, if a minister decides that it is going to cost too much, the minister's office is required to consult with the member to see whether or not the question can be redrafted in a more acceptable form, but that an answer has to be provided.

The standing orders in Victoria and some other jurisdictions outline that, if the answer has not been provided within 30 days, there are procedures within the standing orders where the minister is required to give an explanation to the Legislative Council of Victoria to say that they have not provided an answer but that they will have an answer back in seven days, or whatever it is, as it has taken a longer time or that it is impossible and that they cannot comply with the requirement. There are in some jurisdictions the opportunity for the member who still has not got a reply to either ask the question or put on the record some statement in relation to the minister's failure to comply with the relevant standing order.

In some of the jurisdictions a questions paper is printed and circulated by the staff of the house. I refer in particular to the New South Wales standing order 67 in relation to written questions. Each of the jurisdictions approaches it in a slightly different way. My motion gives the government the opportunity, through the Standing Orders Committee, on which it has a majority, to address the issue of coming to some sort of agreed standing order change to meet this particular requirement.

Ultimately, if the government stands on its digs, then the issue of a standing order change rests on the floor of this chamber where, if a majority of members wanted to go down a particular path, it could either make a sessional order or standing order change, if it so chose. That is not my preferred course of action: my preferred course of action is that we have the discussion, look at the changes in other states and that some agreed change of procedure could be entered into in terms of providing answers within, for example, a 30-calendar-day period, which seems to be the general average of most of the other jurisdictions. Ultimately, the reserve position rests with the Legislative Council.

It is disappointing that it has come to this, that the longstanding convention that Labor and Liberal governments have adhered to has been so grossly abused by this current Labor government for a period now of 11 or 12 years. It is not as if this motion has been moved summarily or promptly as soon as the breaches have occurred; this has just got worse and worst over a period of time. Ministers feel no compulsion at all to provide answers. We know that public servants tell us they have provided the answers to the minister's office.

I got an answer from one particular minister after two years in relation to overseas trips the minister had taken, which came back and said that the minister had not taken any trips at all. Clearly that reply was provided promptly by the staff in the minister's department and/or office, indicating that in the period of 12 months no overseas trips had been taken, therefore no cost was incurred, but it was a period of two years before that particular response was provided.

As I said, I am still waiting for replies to how much money was spent on ministerial office accommodation upgrades in the transfer to government in 2002-03. Questions I have asked about frequent flier point usage and travel from the period of 2002-03 onwards still remain unanswered from various ministers and minister's offices, some of whom are no longer members of the South Australian parliament.

Finally, in one other case 2½ years after asking the question, one minister's office responded to say that their department had employed a person who had taken a targeted separation package. As you know, that is not meant to occur, but it was 2½ years later, almost two years after a reply had been provided by the department.

I guess we ought to be grateful for small mercies: at least that particular minister eventually, after two to 2½ years, did provide a response to the question; in many other cases those ministers have just not responded. The answers sit on the ministers' desk and they just refuse to provide the answers to the questions on notice. The responsibility for this rests on the shoulders of the government ministers who are here (ministers Gago and Hunter) and those who have preceded them. They have brought it on their own heads. They are the ones who have grossly abused this convention, which had been previously adhered to by Labor and Liberal governments in the past.

We will now go through a process, should this parliament decide, of referring it to the Standing Orders Committee, and then ultimately it will be for the floor of the parliament, if there can be no agreement reached, to decide whether or not it wants to proceed down a path of placing greater accountability requirements—reasonable accountability requirements—on government ministers in terms of answering questions on notice. I will formally send an email to all members' offices but, given the fact that this is just a referral to the Standing Orders Committee to discuss this issue, I will be calling for a vote on the next Wednesday of sitting.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. G.A. Kandelaars.