Friday on my mind
I expect the political bunfight over the federal Labor government’s short-lived attempts to have the House of Representatives sit on Fridays is something which the vast majority of people have paid little attention to and couldn’t care less about, other than it reinforcing their general view that politicians spend more of their time trying to discredit each other than they do trying to address issues that concern people. Those who have paid attention would probably also end up reaching the same conclusion.
An idea which could have been such a positive – getting politicians to spend more time in the Parliament considering laws and addressing issues of concern to people – quickly degenerated into shallow and sometimes hypocritical point-scoring from both sides. As I noted when writing on this topic a month ago, the fact that there was no matching extra sitting day in the Senate gave a pretty big clue that the idea was little more than window dressing. Indeed the Senate, which is the house that does almost all the serious consideration of the details of proposed laws, is sitting for fewer days this year than it has for decades.
These stories in The Australian and the Brisbane Times report on the government’s decision to scrap regular Friday sittings after just one attempt, and the efforts of both Labor and Liberal to blame the other side for the outcome. I note that both stories talk of an extra sitting day for “Parliament”, even though only the House of Representatives, and not the Senate (which is also a house of Parliament) was sitting the extra day.
Any suggestion that this exercise might have been driven by some desire to elevate perceptions of the Parliament can also be safely scotched, given the tone of Anthony Albanese’s letter to Liberal leader Brendan Nelson reported in the media – (of course these types of ‘letters’ are really written for the media, not for the supposed recipient). It includes an amazing assertion by Albanese that “whatever thoughts I may have had about John Howard’s leadership, he would never have allowed the party which he led to undermine the standing of parliament.” Who’d have thought Labor would be so quickly suggesting Mr Howard did not undermine the dignity of the Parliament!
The Liberal’s suggestion that it is lessening accountability to have a sitting on Friday without Question Time is also fairly flimsy. There were a number of occasions over the life of the last Liberal government where the Senate was required to sit on Friday to deal with a backlog of legislation, and the Liberals never volunteered to hold Question Time on any of those Fridays. Given there were previously no Friday sittings in the House of Representatives at all, adding a Friday without Question Time doesn’t in itself reduce the number of Question Times that occur, but the concern about it establishing a precedent for the future has some merit. Of course, given the way Question Time has been conducted for many years, it is hard to argue that it is a very effective mechanism for genuinely holding governments to account in any case. However, the daily barrage of shouting, finger-pointing, insulting and cliché spouting is usually as good as it gets as far as anything happening in Parliament attracting media attention goes – especially for Oppositions – so I don’t blame them for being keen on it.
Labor’s lack of interest in consulting with the Liberals before announcing their plan to sit on Fridays was a pretty clear sign it was more stunt than anything else, particularly their attempts to not require a quorum during such times. Ensuring Labor had at least 30 members out of their 83 hanging around on a Friday to guarantee a quorum shouldn’t have been too onerous if they wanted to show they were treating the Friday sittings seriously and are as unprecedented in their hard-working ethos as they like to portray.
The suggestion that it may have been unconstitutional for the House of Reps to keep sitting when it has been established there is not a quorum present is an interesting one. One can never be sure whether there is substance to such an assertion until it has been categorically determined by the High Court, but it seems to me to be at least arguable. However, it is hard not to assume some mock outrage here from the Liberals. I would note that there has long been an informal agreement in the Senate that no quorums be called after 6pm on a Thursday, even though the Adjournment is usually not scheduled until 8pm, so that everyone who wants to leave early to get out of Canberra that night can do so. This is sufficiently well established that it is written into Senate Standing Orders that if a Division (i.e. a formal vote) is called for after 6 pm on a Thursday, the matter before the Senate shall be adjourned until the next day of sitting – that is, the following sitting week. (Standing Order 57(3) if anyone wants to look it up.)
PS: And for what its worth, it probably just means I’m getting jaded and grumpy, but I thought the ‘cardboard cut-out Kevin’ which the Liberals brought into the House of Reps chamber was juvenile and boorish, and just sent a message that MPs treat the Parliament as a joke. Still, it got huge amounts of media coverage and the surface message was fairly obvious, so I guess that means it was incredibly effective politically, which I suppose is what its all about in the end.
13 Comments, Comment or Ping
Jason
Sen. Bartlett – Nice, considered post. But do you think that, in principle, setting aside a day a week during sittings to give more attention to private members’ business would have been a democratic plus? If it were extended to the Senate, would that have been more appealing to you?
Mar 8th, 2008
Andrew Bartlett
Jason, I think the overall idea in principle wasn’t too bad, but they definitely should have consulted first. There certainly aren’t enough times for general (or non-government) business to be debated in either the Reps or the Senate, and I suspect there would have been some general interest from the Coalition to explore ways to improve that if they’d been approached, rather than just read about it in the papers surrounded by lots of bumpf about how this showed how extra hard-working the new government was – which anyone with any experience of the Parliament would have known was mostly just empty self-serving spin.
They could probably have achieved something similar with less angst by sitting for a few hours later on Thursday nights – currently the Reps finishes at 5pm – but most MPs wouldn’t want that because they want to get out of Canberra on the Thursday night (as do the Senators, hence the ‘no divisions/no quorums’ agreement in the Senate on Thursday afternoon). I suspect the level of enthusiasm for hanging around on Fridays was fairly low with most Labor MPs, which probably helped the government figure the whole thing wasn’t really worth the trouble.
Senate Committees tend to use the Fridays for hearings, so I don’t think the Senate should sit on a Friday. However, there should be at least two or three extra weeks of sittings in the Senate – not just for general business, but for govenrment legislation and other business of the Senate.
Mar 8th, 2008
al loomis
mr b, i’ll be sorry when you’re gone. what other pollie will hang his backside out in public, to be kicked?
parliament is obsolete, degenerate, the enemy of the people. pollies are parasites, sucker vines who overwhelmed the british upperclass and supplanted them on top of the people.
complaining about their activity is as pointless as complaining about the table manners of hyenas. living in oz has widened my understanding of human nature. who would have thought that an educated nation could swallow the notion that a few hundred people could be trusted with the treasury and future of the nation, unsupervised and beyond the power of recall.
this is the normal human condition, of course, but elsewhere people know they are being exploited, and resist sometimes. not here. oz pollies live in paradise, i wonder if they know it?
Mar 9th, 2008
muzzmonster
It seems to me Al, that a rather large population of the world either enjoys (inasmuch as anyone enjoys governments) parliamentary democracy in one form of another. Another very large group who don’t liive in a democracy want to.
And if – as you say – people don’t resist, how do you explain the many contributors to this blog?
Mar 9th, 2008
Lorikeet
I think the behaviour of the Liberals during question time has been nothing short of disgusting.
It makes me embarrassed to be an Australian, when our elected representatives carry on like a bunch of egocentric toddlers, instead of getting on with the job.
More time for the parliament to sit would be good.
al loomis:
I remember Gough Whitlam receiving a “recall”.
There are members of the British upper class looking to make money out of global warming.
Mar 9th, 2008
muzzmonster
I agree with you Lorikeet, that more Parliamentary sitting would be good. But I wonder how useful it is if it isn’t going to be used for democracy. In other words, asking questions (and getting answers), presenting the opinions of the electorate, suggesting and debating ideas.
I’m not sure what you mean by your comment re global warming, but it’s clear that some people will make money from global warming )or preventing it). I’m not sure what’s wrong with making money from a useful idea (if they are in fact useful).
Mar 9th, 2008
swio
I am sure the cardboard cut out of Rudd hurt the Co-alition’s standing in the electorate. The impression given was that of school boys acting up after being punished (ie losing government). It left them looking unserious and childish.
When I heard about the Friday sittings I wondered if the government was trying a very tricky stunt. The way the Friday sittings were set up not many people were likely to hang around. I wondered if the whole point was to tempt some of the more radical and undisciplined backbenchers of the co-alition to step into the limelight while their party seniors were out of town and say the things they are normally not allowed to. With the leadership of the co-alition very weak at the moment it would have been sorely tempting.
Mar 10th, 2008
Austin
After reading this and other articles on this incident, and the Hansard record of it, I cannot understand how the Liberal party thin that this persuit benefits them.
If we were to take a line from the previous government, “not ready to govern”, it would clearly apply to this behaviour displayed recently.
On the other issue about the parliament, I think this is the clearest indication yet that most Liberal party MPs in the federal parliament (ok, maybe just front benchers) don’t have any appreciation for their role in the parliament. They are constantly on about who forms government and to hell with the parliament.
I shudder to think about the people who voted these people in and think that this is how they want to be represented.
Mar 10th, 2008
Lorikeet
Muzz:
I was answering something al loomis said at post #3 about pollies overwhelming the British upper class.
I was talking about people such as Lord Haskins in the UK, who wants to “talk up” global warming, so he can get his hands on prime grazing land (get rid of cows) for his own private enterprises.
To be more specific – to extend his wheat-growing capacity, and also set up some kind of condominiums or country retreats.
Haskins has Tony Blair’s ear. Therefore I think it’s more a case of the British upper class attempting to overwhelm pollies, and not the other way around.
Mar 10th, 2008
muzzmonster
My impression is that the British upper class and politicians in the UK are pretty much hand in hand on many issues. But that’s rather beyond the point of this post so I’m not going to address it any further.
Mar 11th, 2008
Stuart Fenech
I think it was all a game of chess, similar in nature to the recommended wage freeze. It was an action certain to irritate the hell out of the Liberals. Fancy those Liberals, complaining about their pay drops – why shouldn’t they be paid the same as the people who purely represent business interests more directly? Working harder for less money? The Liberals did that to the plebs, it’s not meant to happen to THEM! :P
Anyway, the Friday sittings were a pain in the rear. Practically. For pollies and their staff it means leaving late Friday or Saturday morning and returning on a Sunday evening. For people in northern Queensland, NT and WA that’s particularly harsh. It makes it pretty hard to attend to electorate functions/issues and actually see your family between consecutive sitting weeks.
Most of the debate has been wayward. Pollies not working in Canberra on a Friday does not mean they are not working! It means they are working back in the electorate, usually, with notable exceptions like Mark Vaile! :P
Mar 12th, 2008
Lorikeet
Stuart:
Yes, you’re right.
Most of the Liberals come from very privileged, well-educated backgrounds. It can have its pluses and minuses where politics is concerned.
If they try to put up Julie Bishop as the party leader, I will be happy. I think she is a stuck-up, supercilious bitch, who will diminish votes.
When I was in Canberra at Xmas, airport staff told me there is a mass exodus out of there by politicians on Fridays.
Politicians such as Stephen Smith from WA have several hours flying time to return home. Some could have longer. Then they have to be back on Monday.
Some might be lucky to get 2 days at home.
Mar 13th, 2008