Government shuts down censure in QT farce
16 Sep 2009
Media release "This morning the Coalition moved to bring some sanity to Question Time, and to bring to an end the rambling and irrelevant answers to our questions from Government Ministers - the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister in particular," said Manager of Opposition Business Christopher Pyne.
"Our attempt to change Parliament's Standing Orders to limit answers to four minutes and require that answers be relevant to the questions - a change previously supported by Labor - was blocked by Labor using its numbers in the House.
"Now it is in Government, Labor has deliberately chosen to frustrate, with long winded political rants and persistent refusal to answer the questions - the only opportunity the Government has in the House to bring the Government to account.
"As a result, Question Time today predictably descended again into farce with Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard refusing to answer questions on important issues such as the Government's wasteful spending and the dangerous accumulation of debt, instead resorting to long and irrelevant verbiage and abuse.
"In an extremely unusual move, the Government also refused to debate a censure motion against Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard for the waste and mismanagement of taxpayer money in her Building the Education Revolution program. This can only indicate the Government's increasing embarrassment at the litany of bungles in the Deputy Prime Minister's Department, which she refuses to take responsibility for.
"The Rudd Government is unaccountable. It is guilty of constant abuses of Parliamentary process.
"This is a Government that will resist at all costs any scrutiny of its scandalous waste and mismanagement of taxpayers' money."
September 16, 2009
MEDIA CONTACT:
Adam Howard
0400 414 833