Parliament goes into recess next week, after a sitting whose most prominent contribution to political discussion was the unruliness of question time (aside, of course, from the usual shenanigans of opposition disunity, which are now customary).
Writing in Crikey yesterday, Bernard Keane observed:
I’ve been watching or listening to Parliament since the early Hawke years and I can never recall Question Time not being made a mockery of.
Speaking as a recovering question time tragic, I’m not sure I agree with that. It’s true if the ritual is compared to some sort of Platonic eidos – as if its essence (dignified accountability and/or razor or rapier sharp wit) must incarnate itself in the chamber on a daily basis. In truth, a lot of the mysticism about parliamentary discourse – and accountability – is just that. If some sort of conception of parliament as a pure space, an agora if you like, for the exchange of ideas and reasoning was a large part of the mythos of nineteenth century liberalism, that doesn’t mean that we should expect that it would have a lot to do with the pragmatics of twenty-first century Australian politics, though its traces remain.
Back in a more Aristotelian world, I think we can discard the Bagehot for a bit, and make some observations about precisely when and why parliamentary tempers boil over.
Paul Keating’s famous comment to John Hewson – “Mate, because I want to do you slowly” – was made in the thick of an incredible campaign by the opposition. When not indulging in silly stunts (which would have made the makers of small Australian flags very prosperous), the Coalition deliberately tried to goad Keating to lose his temper, betting that PJK in full flight on the nightly news would be a turnoff.
I’m not old enough to remember, but I’m sure that when Edward Gough Whitlam deigned to descend from his Olympian heights (and to pop into Australia in between inspecting the Elgin marbles), he didn’t land in the midst of dignified behaviour. In fact, Whitlam’s over-ruling of the Speaker, Jim Cope, effectively forcing his resignation, fleshes out Michelle Grattan’s retrospective picture of the House as characterised by “chaos and impetuousness”.
A lot of this kerfuffle and piffle, to adapt a PJK-ism, has one simple cause – the inability of the serried and suited ranks of those who see themselves as the country’s natural rulers to accept the verdict of the electorate as anything other than a temporary aberration. In the case of “Rudd rage”, that rancour is heightened by their complete failure to disrupt or shift the image the electorate has formed of Kevin Rudd.
And one of the reasons for that failure is the increasing irrelevance of question time, and parliament itself, to the actuality as opposed to the putative essence of Westminster democracy, 2009 Antipodean style.
I sometimes think we’d be better off if instead of covering question time, we had some coverage of the substantive motions and debates that take place every day in the Parliament. Maybe that’s why people have such a low view of politicians; because they have no idea what they really do all day (at least when Parliament is in session).
To get a good idea of what I mean, check the Austrlian Parliament House website, ‘This Week in the House’. And that’s just the Reps.
When queried about Question Time unruliness on Q&A last night, Joe Hockey responded with his usual shallow “mad uncle at the dinner table” theme, but Tania Plibersek then made the pertinent riposte: the real action happens in the parliamentary committees, and that is where you will see pollies at their best, sometimes genuinely struggling with the deep philosophical questions that should occupy the minds of our legislators, and mostly behaving with some decorum and respect. But the punters never see the action in committee proceedings because the press gallery hacks are mostly on the hunt for the daily headline, and that’s easier to grab from Circus Time, than spend the time and effort explaining what is actually happening behind the scenes. The answer to all this sturm and drang, if there is one, is to expand the visibility of and public access to parliamentary committees…
I can remember Whitlam’s overruling of Cope, which was reportedly prefaced by Whitlam telling Cope “you’ve f*cked it now!” Whitlam is also reported, during his first stint as Leader of the Opposition, to have thrown a glass of water over the then Foreign Minister Paul Hasluck,and to have called another Coalition Minister, across the chamber, a vernacular term for female genitalia which Graeme Bird frequently uses to describe myself, Mark and Fyodor, amongst others.
I recall another incident in 1982 when Bob Hawke called Malcolm Fraser a liar, refused to withdraw, and was expelled from the HoR, after which every Labor member promptly got up on a point of order and called Mal a liar, at which point the Speaker realised that the session would dissolve in uproar if he insisted on expelling the entire Opposition, so he desisted from asking Labor MPs to withdraw the term “lair”. This caused Mal to go ballistic at being called a liar on the record, and he had to be taken outside and, in the language of one of his colleagues, “hosed down” by Doug Anthony.
It has been worse of late though. Is this due to the ‘rudeness’ of Rudd? Or is it due to the majesty of the last speaker who would kick the opposition out for even squinting in a threatening manner?
I think you’re confusing ‘majesty’ with ‘travesty’, there tssk. An easy mistake to make.
he Opposition disrupts QT with points of order because they can. POs are the last thing, the last little vestige of veto they have over the government in the HOR. They can force any minister, even the Prime Minister to sit down and shut up, simply by standing and catching the Speaker’s eye.
The POs don’t have to mean anything, or even be genuine POs. In order to rule on them the Speaker has to hear them. Before hearing them he has to ask the minister to resume his or her seat. It’s rather pathetic that the Coalition feels it has to do this, but what else have they got? No power, no official standing, no policies, no leadership, no support either among business or the public… not much of anything, really.
I’d like to see the Speaker enforce a stricter interpretation of the PO rules. If the PO is petty, or is “no point of order” then the interjector is outed for an hour for disruption.
I’d also like to see less speech-making by the government when they answer a question. It doesn’t really impress anyone when they do a good job on an answer. That’s not why the gallery journalists turn up. It’s only when the minister commits a gaffe that it gets written up. So what’s the point of making the speech in the first place? Especially when it’s always the same speech?
What can be done about loaded questions from the Coalition I don’t know. Perhaps a briefer response from the government would be in order.
I don’t like how the pollies don’t follow the rules that they put on us. We have anti-sexism, anti-discrim laws, anti-bullying – yet they do all that stuff openly.
Walk the walk!
They should be exemplary. And a few more witty comments to liven things up.
wasn’t it also Whitlam, commenting on an Opposition member’s wayward after-dinner behaviour in the House, who called out “It’s what you’ve got in your belly that’s rooted you!” ?
Not the elegant and demure Parliamentary performer (Gough) who we remember from more elevated occasions…..
Let me see if I can follow your argument, Mark.
1. The concept of a serious, sober, august parliament is mostly a polite fiction. Aspirational at best.
2. … but all disruptions and deviations from the ideal are the coalition’s fault.
Sometimes you write really insightful stuff. But lately it’s been all a bit lazy partisan rabble-rousing dressed up with nice callouts to this or that philosopher/theorist/writer.
Who was the mid 20th century Labor leader who habitually dropped h’s?
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Apparently he once asked what was coming before the ‘Ouse (of Parliament) and Menzies replied that usually the ‘h’ does. I reckon Paul Keating’s response to Hewson, which I recall seeing live, outdid that old Brit lackey. One of the best comebacks ever. One doesn’t exchange ideas in parliament, one jousts. The ideas, assuming there any, are already fixed like bayonets before the fuckers walk in.
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But it does put these people on display and that’s the point. They make a pretty poor show. Always disappointing for those who’ve read the most mutually respectful and civilized debate viz Monarchy v Republic in Baldassare Castiglione’s book of ettiquette. But then, apart from the fact that The Courtier is an idealization not a documentary, consider how violent actual Italian politics were at the time. Unbelievable!
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Perhaps our parliament is excessively confrontational because it can be. Or maybe the quanitity theory of insanity applies and they act like tossers so we don’t have to.
I like watching Rudd, gillard and company doing them slowly. But I’m usually too tired that late at night to bother. And I’m running out of popcorn.
The Coalition is doing exactly what the ALP did when the ALP was in opposition – and vice versa. Anthony Albanese was every bit as disruptive with nebulous points of order as Pyne and Hockey are now. In opposition, Julia Gillard worked up a Private Member’s Bill to restrict Ministers answers to the 4 minute limit which she now routinely exceeds and the ALP in opposition (Rudd memorably leading the way) continually complained about Ministers eschewing opportunities to address points raised in questions in favour of lengthy tirades about the inadequacy of the member asking it – protected by the breadth of interpretation offered in addressing the question.
Rudd now regularly reads a staggeringly boring 10 minute speech into Hansard in response to the first Dixer of the day in about as flagrant a disregard of the spirit of QT as I can imagine. He does it because he can. Unsurprisingly, QT procedures favour the government and the government has the numbers sufficient to retain the status quo. Why would they want to change it?
I think that parliament is almost perfect. We should keep the standing orders as they are. But we need just one innovation.
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Naturally we the voters are the ones who get to press the buttons.
@10: Question time is not a representative sample of the proceedings of Parliament.
I believe Howard was a stickler for keeping the answers short and some of his were only one word.
I haven’t listened much lately but heard a bit the other day and thought it the worst I’d ever heard. It was very much the Opposition’s doing. The Speaker made one minister withdraw a not too outrageous remark, which would never have happened in Howard’s day.
It was said that we had genuine orators in the past with wit and eloquence, Killen, for example, but that might be overrated and I’m not sure they were often employed in QT because I didn’t have time to listen. Certainly, I think PJK was adept at phrases that were repeatable in a grab in the evening news, as Gillard is now.
I think Rudd needs to help out by stopping his ministers from asking ‘Dorothy Dixers’ which just waste everyone’s time.
My 4 Y.O. and I saw some question time on the ABC news last week, now he’s marching about shouting “Awdah! AWW-DAAAAGH!”
tssk@16
An alternative would be to move suspension of standing orders to allow ministers to get their statements off their chests (ideally as 3-5 minute statements) and then move on.
Sounds good Fran. I have no doubt that when the Coalition gets in it would be changed back but we could get on with business in the meantime.
Mark, it was all very well for Whitlam to complain about “the serried and suited ranks of those who see themselves as the country’s natural rulers”, but the last 20 years have seen the decline of said group to irrelevance. Turnbull learned his arrogance not at the Melbourne Club, but at the feet of the boorish and banal Kerry Packer. The people you describe mostly left the national stage with Malcolm Fraser, and Kroger did for any stragglers in 1990.
Howard built a constituency on the back of nondescript people from nondescript schools, nondescript backgrounds and nondescript jobs. For God’s sake, you’re a Queenslander: do you think Joh was some sort of bunyip aristo? I despair for Labor’s prospects of renewal.
What’s happening to Turnbull, Bishop, Abbott et al is no more than what happened to the likes of Gareth Evans (Melbourne Uni, QC) or Kim Beazley (scion of, with the work ethic of Peter Costello) in about 1997, when he realised he wasn’t going to slide back behind the ministerial desk with a self-satisfied “now, where was I?”. Yes, it was a while ago, but it’s amazing that you’ve forgotten that but are able to lurch back to the ’70s and talk about born-to-rule. Look at NSW Labor, if you dare, in office for 60 of the past 80 years, and STFU about born-to-rule.
As to Question Time: parliamentary theatre is bullshit. It’s a monkey show, a huge public turn-off; smart marginal seat MPs should sit there with their heads in their hands, walk out, or hold up signs saying “It’s nothing to do with me”. There hasn’t been a Question Time of genuine national importance since 1975.
Andrew, that’s not a quote from Whitlam, that’s me. And most of Howard’s small biz, salt of the earth types are gone. I don’t think thinktankers, merchant bankers, and staffers, and lawyers are exactly the same thing – if you have a bit of a squizzy at the sort of Liberal currently being preselected, or going for preselection. But that wasn’t the whole of my point – the conservative parties in Australia have always regarded Labor victories as somehow an aberration.
Historically there’s a lot of reinforcement for that, Mark. It’s just that the last time Teh Establishment had any real sort of sway as you describe was the ’70s. It wouldn’t have been a quote from Whitlam himself (at Canberra Grammar, Knox College, USyd law & the Sydney bar he’d have seen the whites of their eyes) but it is a constant theme for those who keen for him. If Keating had complained about the serried etc. in 1996 it would have been an utter joke, and if Rees does the same over the next eighteen months he’ll have even less credibility than he does now.