Questions on Notice Standing Orders

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. R.I. Lucas:

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.

(Continued from 15 October 2014.)

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (21:14): I will be brief, given the time of night, but I am very passionate about this motion. I commend the Hon. Rob Lucas for this motion, namely 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.

It has almost become comedy time in this chamber when you as President ask our ministers if they have any questions on notice to table and every now and again we get one, but most days we do not get any. Some days we get a couple. It has taken over two years to get a response to some of those questions. This has become a tactic that has increased, in my opinion, and it has deteriorated the legitimacy of this chamber over the last two or three years in particular.

I place on the public record that I believe—and I declare to the honourable whip that I have not done the statistics on this—that when the Hon. Mike Rann was premier we generally got responses quicker than we do now. So this has been a deliberate tactic.

A long time ago, when we had a Liberal government, ministers were actually instructed—and I had to do it myself—to get responses as quickly as possible. To show respect to your colleagues, irrespective of whether they are opposition, government or crossbench colleagues, I think it should be incumbent on the minister to ensure that if they do not know the subject matter—and to be fair to ministers, they cannot be a font of knowledge on everything—they should take it on notice and get a response back forthwith.

I have come to a point now where I do not put questions on notice at all. I have found it such a waste of time and it is actually not good for the constituents for whom I put these questions on notice because it is an embarrassment. My office has to ring those constituents back every month and say, 'We haven't forgotten about you but unfortunately the government has forgotten about you. All we can do is keep asking them.' It actually works against the government, if they think about it.

What I have decided to do is keep a bit of a log of what ministers get back to us quickly and what they do not. I actually write to ministers now with a question because I can get an answer back from most ministers. There was one minister in the other house who held the record. He took about two years to get back to us with the worst response, because he allegedly used to take his jogging bag home with him (rather than his cabinet bag) to run around West Lakes Shore. He is no longer in this place so he is probably jogging most days.

The point is that we deserve to be respected by the government of the day, whether it is a Liberal or a Labor government, because we are here in a democratic process representing our constituents. I say to this council: for goodness sake, if a minister cannot get a response back within 30 days, they ought to resign due to incompetence. It is as simple as that.

I will finish with this: you cannot blame the bureaucrats or the office staff, because I think without exception now every minister has an officer within their office whose duty it is to actually look at the Hansard and take all this stuff up. They actually send questions off to departments and agencies, generally within a couple of days of the question being put on notice, with a request for a response. What I understand is happening—a deliberate tactic—is that ministers just ignore and sit on questions while they build up dust, to the point where they do not even know where they are in their office, unless they have a good cleaner who keeps removing the dust.

It took nearly a year to get a response to one question, which really infuriated me, and it was one paragraph that said nothing. It did not even answer the question. To me, that was absolute contempt. If I was more savvy about the media—and I have learned a bit since then as I have a little more experience—I would have taken it to them and said, 'This shows the incompetence of the minister.' If it happens again, I will. I am not going to hold back anymore. I am going to go to the media and expose the incompetence of a minister. In the meantime, I commend the motion. I seriously believe that if the government does not support this, if it says that it is not in a position to get responses to questions on notice within 30 days, then it should get out of government.

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS (21:19): I rise on behalf of the government to oppose this motion, but I recognise that it is unlikely and I am pragmatic enough to know that we have the numbers to support our position. As such, the government is willing for the Standing Orders Committee to consider and, if appropriate, look at specific time frames for responding to questions on notice. The Hon. Rob Lucas is not very clear in his contribution if he is referring to only questions on notice or if his intention is also to include time periods for questions taken on notice during question time. I am sure he will clarify that matter.

When providing consideration to both these issues, it is important to ensure that no unintended consequences are created as a result of the proposed changes. It is important to ensure that it does not create a greater burden by increasing the pressure on our public sector, which is responsible for preparing answers to questions, and that the responses to members' questions are given due consideration.

Another point I will make is that many questions asked by the Liberal opposition are not genuine questions and, as seen in the freedom of information process, they also use the questions on notice process as a fishing expedition. This again places additional pressure on our public sector and takes resources away from front-line services that benefit our community.

The Standing Orders Committee should give thought to the types of subjects, the length of questions and the number of parts to each question placed on notice. Looking at the subject matter of the previous questions on notice tabled, some have required substantial research, and future time requirements need to be reflective of the range and types of questions.

With the introduction of proactive disclosure, the number of questions on notice by the opposition has declined, and as a result we have a more transparent government. What is also amazing is that the opposition is asking for a standard they did not adhere to in government. As the Hon. Mr Rob Lucas states in his debate—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Kandelaars has the floor.

The Hon. T.J. Stephens: He's talking shit.

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS: I will continue. As the Hon. Mr Rob Lucas states in—

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Kandelaars, sit down for a second, please. The Hon. Mr Stephens, I heard a word which was completely unbecoming of you and is totally unparliamentary, so I would like you to withdraw it.

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS: I am happy to withdraw it.

The PRESIDENT: Thank you.

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS: I will continue, Mr President. As the Hon. Mr Lucas states in his debate, the parliament website does list the number of questions asked on notice, and if you look and compare when the question was asked and when the response was tabled by the then Liberal government, around 84 per cent took longer than 30 days to be responded to.

Finally, as our standing orders in the Legislative Council do not include clauses that cause our questions to lapse when parliament prorogues, the government feels that, should the impost of a time period for responses be put in place, this particular clause should also be reviewed and consideration be given to reflecting the House of Assembly clause that allows questions to lapse.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (21:23): Once again, consistent with my previous comments, Dignity for Disability supports this very sensible motion.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (21:24): The Greens will be supporting this motion, but I do need to say that my resolve in that position is somewhat shaken, having heard the contribution of the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars. He makes a most excellent point in relation to the unintended consequences that might flow from a change to our standing orders. Those consequences might include concepts such as accountability, which I think if it were to take a foothold in our system of government would be the beginning of the end. Another unintended consequence is that members of parliament might get it into their heads that they are somehow relevant to the system of government in this state and I think, again, a very dangerous idea that we need to be cautious of promoting in this place.

I do accept one thing the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars said, and that is that the Standing Orders Committee should pay attention to whether the 30-day answer period relates to questions that were formally put on notice or whether they were questions that were taken on notice. I would hope that the Standing Orders Committee would look at the latter because, as I said before, many of us on the crossbench do not have representatives in the other place and our only way to get questions through to other ministers is to ask questions without notice here that are subsequently taken on notice and referred.

Like the Hon. Rob Brokenshire I cannot recall the last time I put a question on notice. We used to use it, I think in our first year. We looked at the different tools that were available to us in our parliamentary toolkit and we put quite a few questions on notice, but it only takes a year or two of non-answers to realise that you have wasted your time and so we have not bothered with it.

What I can say is that if we did have an answer period such as this then I think it would change the way we work. It would certainly change the way we ask questions during question time and it would very likely also change the way we use the Freedom of Information Act or other tools that are available to us, so I see this as a good initiative and the Greens are pleased to support it.

Motion carried.