Page 2067 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 21 June 2011
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questions on notice or questions taken on notice. It is in the appendix. Of those, 250 were taken on notice, but there were 644 questions placed on the committee notice paper.
If that is not one of the world’s greatest fishing trips, I am blessed if I know what is. It is unbelievable. Go and have a look at this: 644 questions put on notice. That is nothing short of ridiculous. It is ridiculous. What is it all about? How much do you reckon in the answers to those questions on notice would be actually used to stimulate or inform public debate? How much of that do you think would be used for nothing more than trolling through it with a nice little jiggler type of lure—one of those ockie jigglers—trying to find something which pops out like a carp flapping on the bank? No, that is all they are going to do with it. Does it find its way into the newspaper? No. Does it find its way into debate here? No. Does it find its way into an MPI? No. What does it do? Does it find its way in the minds of those empty vessels on the other side of the chamber? No.
These people have not got enough time left on this earth to do something with the information that they have asked for. They have not got enough time left on this earth. We observed that in previous years. I think, in fact, what we are seeing now is that the high jump bar keeps going up. There were 894 questions taken on notice. How about we put a $10 note in the middle here and ask, “How many is it going to be next year?” I reckon it will go past 900. It has got to—maybe even 1,000. When you have a look at the number of questions put on the notice paper in the ordinary sense, it would not surprise me.
However, we move on. Ms Hunter was saying that her idea of having the standing committees do the estimates process might be a nicer way of spreading the load a bit. I take that point. However, I do make this point, Madam Deputy Speaker. Your good self is in fact the chair of a committee. I noticed recently there has been furious agreement from those opposite and those on the crossbench about having a chair of an estimates committee process be a government member. I just point that out as a matter of inconsistency, ladies and gentlemen. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot put in the standing orders that the chair of an estimates process cannot be a government member, then turn around and say, “The standing committees can do it,” knowing that one of those chairs is a government member. There is an inconsistency.
Ms Hunter also referred, and I think quite rightly, to the new way of doing things in terms of dissenting reports. I have to say that I am really pleased to see the lack of a full-on dissenting report at the back of the estimates report. I reckon from the perspective of the average man in the street that that is just a load of nonsense. These insomniacs look through the estimates report and they find something that they really do not like. But unless there is a footnote telling them to go back and have a look at the dissenting report, which is sometimes 300 pages later on, then the context is totally gone.
I do like the idea of having a disagreement with a given process, either a statement or a recommendation, appearing in the body of the report. I like it. Indeed, I think I put one in myself and I think Ms Le Couteur put three in like that. I think that is great. That means that between us we put four in. Consider that against those opposite who on the other hand, using the footnote system, did 13. Actually, from what I read in
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