Senators are better behaved than their House of Representatives colleagues. They don’t get thrown out during Question Time, for example. But will this change the anger over the new arrangements for questions in the Senate?
A roster system allocating questions between the different parties has operated since the 1990s. Different rules have also applied to Senate questions, with strict time limits for answers and supplementary questions.
Yesterday morning, Labor Senate leader Chris Evans was notified by the president, Paul Calvert, that the roster would now be changed to reflect the new numbers, with the government and Family First’s Steve Fielding the winners. The Dems and the Greens heard zip.
Naturally, there was uproar. Labor and the minor parties said the move was the first sign the government is using its new majority to stifle debate. Senate leader Robert Hill responded: “I suppose this is the stunt we had to have.”
“The opposition, because it has broadcasted this in the press for weeks, is determined to show this government to be arrogant in the Senate, and it defines ‘arrogance’ as the government utilising its majority,” he continued.
“Don’t you agree with proportional representation?” one government Senator interjected. “It’s the will of the people,” another chimed in. They’re right – but it was a clumsy start from the government to Senate control. A very clumsy start.
While new Senators were only sworn in yesterday, the new Senate came into force on 1 July. There have been six weeks to thrash out this sort of thing. It’s a subtlety – but an important subtlety. One that didn’t need to make the government look insensitive.
In the dying days of the old Senate, some of the older and wiser crossbenchers observed that the government would miss them – that the government often discovered errors or unintended consequences in its agenda items when it went chasing their votes.
It looks as if there forecasts have proved true. Must do better, Robert.
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