Page 3865 - Week 09 - Thursday, 25 August 2011
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I have often said in this place that I do not think we have any such thing as “the community”. We have a series of community groups, we have a series of special interest groups. We do not have a single “the community”. It is not a body. But that does not mean to say that parts of our constituency do not collect together for a particular issue or series of them. The only opportunity they have to engage with us is to advise non-executive members of questions without notice and motions that may come forward as MPIs. There is a competition in all of those.
One of the things that I do like about the proposal that has come forward from Mr Coe is that there will be five questions come and, therefore, there will be five non-executive members come out. All too often, Mr Speaker—I know this for a fact—with regard to matters of public importance submitted by parties, we have six of the same MPIs come out of the Libs, similar things from the Greens, and similar things from the Labor Party, so that only one subject comes up. That is not possible under this proposed regime, because parties are going to look really stupid if the same question is brought out a second time. They are going to look really dumb. So that will be avoided.
What we are actually going to see, I would hope, in this 20 minutes after question time is the engagement of five separate non-executive members. The chances of those five coming only from the opposition is slim, which means that it should be a nice spread. Essentially, if you exclude your good self, Mr Speaker, we have got three members of the Greens in the ballot, we have got three members of the Labor Party in the ballot and six members of the Liberal Party in the ballot. On the theory of probability, the Liberal Party will get half of them. So they are going to get about two to three each time we go, over time. That is healthy. We get a spread across all of the portfolios.
I was talking to Dr Bourke about this, and he was quite keen to be able to ask some questions which were electorate specific about the sorts of conversations he has when he talks to people out there in the electorate. Ms Porter has told me exactly the same thing. When she goes out with her mobile office—Ms Porter is ubiquitous out there—she comes back with the concerns of her constituents. It would be nice for those constituents to hear the question put to the minister that they have put to Ms Porter. I think this process actually allows it.
This roster, as I say, is not supposed to be the be-all and end-all; we will do another one for the calendar year 2012. I might say through you, Mr Speaker—I hope with Ms Bresnan’s blessing—that, where members feel like this roster could be improved for 2012, between now and December would be a good time to tell us. That way we do not have to go in cold when we come back after the Christmas break. I commend the motion.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (10.58): I thank Mr Hargreaves for moving this motion to change the standing orders, albeit temporarily, and also for the summation he gave of the proposal. I think it showed he has a pretty good grasp of what my intentions were when I wrote to the Speaker about a year ago. He has addressed one particular issue which is worth reiterating—that is, some of these portfolios are so broad and they do
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