Page 3861 - Week 09 - Thursday, 25 August 2011

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that roster as it currently stands and that may be because the minister for sustainable development is not on the roster either. However, this is a very good proposal and one well worth trialling. Hopefully it will be endorsed by the Assembly as a permanent standing order, perhaps with some reforms.

We all know that very rarely do we have many people in our gallery. I think that is a shame. I would like to see more people here. I would like to see more Canberrans engage with the work of the Assembly on a sitting day. This proposal might create a little bit more incentive for relevant stakeholders to come into this place and see what happens on any given day. I do not believe it will be a burden on the departments as they already do this kind of work. In actual fact, because there will be a clear roster, they will know well in advance if there are any topical issues which they can expect to get some questions on. As I said, they usually prepare and they are well equipped to answer such questions. I do not think it will be a burdensome program on them.

However, I am concerned about the potential labour intensive nature of putting questions on notice to the Speaker and also to the Secretariat. That is something I would be keen to get feedback on from the Secretariat and the Speaker at the end of the trial period. There is scope, perhaps, to not put questions on notice and to leave the questions without notice but still maintain the roster—so that we all know what portfolios are going to be quizzed but they simply do not know the exact nature of the question. However, I acknowledge that element of questions without notice through the supplementary question capability.

I would like to put on the record my thanks to Mrs Dunne, the Liberals’ representative on the admin and procedure committee, and to the other members, including the Speaker and the Secretariat, for considering this issue. I specifically thank them for giving me the opportunity to present and to answer questions earlier this year on this issue. I look forward to this reform. I believe it is a reform. I believe that it will improve government accountability. I believe it will enhance the power of this Assembly to scrutinise ministers and to scrutinise how taxpayers’ dollars are spent. I commend this temporary standing order to the Assembly.

MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (10.42): The government will be supporting these proposals this morning, but I think it is worth placing some observations and comments on the record. First of all, I think it is worth observing that, when it comes to question time, this Assembly has one of the most comprehensive scrutiny regimes of any parliament in the federation. We are the only parliament where every non-executive member is able to ask not just a substantive question but a series of supplementary questions of a minister or ministers in each and every question time. So we already have one of the most robust and extensive questioning regimes of the executive on a daily basis during sitting days of any parliament in the federation.

That said, it is probably worth observing that this proposal will extend that even further. In some respects I think the observation could be made that, given the extensive opportunities already available to members through both their right to a question and also a series of supplementaries, the question should be asked as to why


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