Page 3044 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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Mrs Dunne: About eight inches worth.
MR SESELJA: Yes, about eight inches worth of questions on notice that were responded to there. We have had several questions on notice which simply will not be answered—basic questions about the budget where we have had answers from ministers saying, “Until the budget is passed, we can’t tell you what’s in it.” That is absolutely ridiculous. The whole point of asking these questions is to get answers. Indeed, I would have thought the point of the debate is partly also to allow ministers to respond to what has been put in estimates and to what is put in debate. The idea in the document that was circulated saying that people could table their speeches is absolutely ridiculous. How far do we want to move in relation to that?
A point also needs to be made about how much time has been taken up on other issues today.
Mr Hargreaves: Yes, the MPI. That is a good one.
MR SESELJA: We were not asked not to do an MPI. This is the whole point. There was no discussion about this at the beginning of the week; there was no request. Last year there was a discussion and a request which was acceded to.
We wanted more sitting weeks in this place. We were not successful in getting 16 sitting weeks. The government, once again, have not got their act together. Then, late, they decide that they will limit debate. The effect of that will be that ACT Health gets 40 minutes: we will hear 10 minutes of justification from the health minister and 40 minutes in total on nearly $1 billion of expenditure. There will be 40 minutes for education. We do not believe that this is the way to go. The fact that this deal has been done to shut it down—
Ms Gallagher: You should have thought about that earlier, Zed.
MR SESELJA: Sorry? We should have thought about it? Why was there no discussion at the beginning of the week? Why was there no discussion in the business meetings about how to get through this? Why wasn’t this taken into account? We always come up against this. There are more keen speakers this time, because we have a bigger crossbench, yet there was no discussion about it.
Both the Labor Party and the Greens did not agree to have more sitting weeks, which would have allowed some of these things to be dealt with. Now they do not want the scrutiny. They did not want the scrutiny in answering the questions, and now they do not want to have to actually justify a lot of their lines. We will have lines in the budget where we will not hear from the minister responsible. To put it down to 40 minutes for ACT Health, in particular, and 40 minutes for the department of education, is, we believe, grossly inadequate.
When it comes down to it, one of the issues here is the fact that the deal was really done before this budget was presented. It was done between the Labor Party and the Greens. Now the idea is that no, we should not be able to debate it and that any sort of debate is excessive. More than 40 minutes of debate on health and 40 minutes on education is excessive?
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