Independents Helen Haines, Zali Steggall and Rebekha Sharkie have issued a call for basic standards of behaviour during Question Time that are long overdue.
They are pushing for a trial on restricting phone use during Question Time, as a means to improve the process and see politicians showing more respect.
One would think you could get through the one-hour session without needing to be engrossed in your phone, even if that phone involves receiving a live feed of advice or coaching from your team.
Question Time should be an opportunity for politicians to share their values, what they’ve heard and learned from their communities and why they are supporting or opposing various policies.
It’s a short period – that Australians can watch live from home – in which the Parliament is expected to closely scrutinise the work of the executive government, with ministers called on to explain their policies and actions.
It is also – as the Australian parliamentary website explains – a time for ministers to present their leadership abilities and political skills, and for the Opposition to position themselves as an alternative government.
It is democracy at work.
And it’s where the greatest and most memorable speeches of our time are given, leadership is demonstrated, the next generation is inspired, and comments and activities beamed to the rest of the world.
But what those so often see instead of this lively contest of ideas is absolute disrespect, disinterest and disregard for the process elected officials are paid and given the privilege of participating in.
And, more often than not, they get at least a dozen or so MPs, including so often the prime minister himself, showing more interest in their phones, than this important democratic process.
Indeed, Prime Minister Scott Morrison uses his phone as a prop, to show his absolute disinterest in the opposition spokesperson speaking, as if to suggest their opinions and their questions (that are offered wrapped in comments) do not matter.
These questions and comments do matter.
It’s not just the prime minister who pulls out his phone on a regular basis, but also ministers, as well as representatives from both major parties.
Around 20 MPs were caught spending time on their phones during Thursday’s Question Time, according to analysis published today.
The crossbenchers looking to address the phone time — Steggall, Haines and Sharkie — are also calling for other areas of Question Time to be cleaned up, including by limiting ‘Dorothy Dixers’ (which are those rehearsed questions asked by government backbenchers to provide an opening for a rehearsed answer from a minister, which inevitably ends with the government slamming the opposition) to five per session.
These Questions Time reform ideas are part of a wider Reform Agenda, created by The Australia Institute and launched on Thursday that call for, among other things, a federal ICAC with teeth, as well as more truth in political advertising.
More generally, the Reform Agenda also calls for:
- A federal ICAC with teeth
- Truth in political advertising laws
- Code of Conduct for MPs
- Ministerial diaries to be made public
- Reforms to Question Time
- Private Members’ business to be voted on
- A ban on political fundraising events at Parliament House