In chaotic Senate scenes, Labor has set a 125-year record by keeping question time running for more than three hours, after the government lost control of the chamber and threatened to strip Coalition members from parliamentary committees in a fight over transparency.
Senator David Pocock led a push to dramatically extend question time and force ministers to answer more questions, with the Coalition, Greens and crossbench defying the government to force changes to long-held conventions and rules in the upper house. It was a rare move which Labor minister Murray Watt labelled a “dummy spit”.
Government senators were livid at the upending of convention, giving only very short answers in question time to the extra five questions that Pocock’s motion required. It led to extended shouting matches in the Senate between Labor, Coalition and Greens members.
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Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie accused the prime minister, Anthony Albanese – who is in South Korea – of “bullying this chamber”. The trade minister, Don Farrell, leading the Senate, referred to the parliamentary drama as “cheap tricks”.
“Maybe one of these days, you’ll be back into government and you’ll understand how important it is for the opposition to act in a responsible way,” Farrell told Coalition members.
But in an unexpected move late on Thursday afternoon, long after the extra questions had expired, Labor kept question time running and did not call the session to a close, in a bid to make a procedural point of their own.
Question time usually runs from 2pm to 3pm, with the extra five questions required from Pocock’s motion adding about 20 minutes to the time, but rules require a minister to formally call an end to question time.
However, Labor kept the session running until 5.30pm, keeping senators in the Senate chamber long after many would normally have left to go home at the end of the sitting week.
Some senators found themselves distracted during the marathon question time. Independent senator Tammy Tyrrell waved and gave “shaka” hand gestures to schoolchildren in the public gallery; Liberal backbencher Jane Hume fashioned a paper necklace out of Minties lolly wrappers.
Guardian Australia was told by a government source that they believed the 210-minute session was the longest question time since federation in 1901, the previous record being about 150 minutes.
“Everyone’s racing out to get their little trolley bags and head off to the Chairman’s Lounge [at the airport],” the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, joked after question time was closed.
“They couldn’t believe they’d been delayed, frustrated they had to sit in here.”
Revolt against secrecy
Pocock led a revolt against government secrecy this week to punish Labor for sitting on a key report into government board appointments. The investigation, from former public service commissioner Lynelle Briggs, was received two years ago by Gallagher, but the government has continually blocked its release, claiming it is subject to cabinet and confidentiality issues.
Pocock, angry at the delay, moved on Wednesday afternoon to change the Senate’s standing orders and add extra questions to the daily question time until the report was released, giving non-government senators more chance to ask questions.
Non-government members in the Senate and House of Representatives have put increasing pressure on Labor over issues of transparency and secrecy. In July, the Centre for Public Integrity claimed the Albanese government had a poorer record than the Coalition under Scott Morrison when it came to producing documents for public scrutiny, accusing Labor of undermining principles of the freedom of information system.
Gallagher said the Briggs report would be released “when that work is finished”, but opposed Pocock’s actions, claiming senators were “abusing” Senate orders to seek “unreasonable” amounts of government documents.
She claimed while the Keating government had received 53 Senate orders to produce documents, the current government had received 100 orders in recent weeks alone, and 336 during the last term of government.
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“Some of them had a scope that extended to thousands and thousands of pages, and some of them were required to be complied with within timeframes that are simply unreasonable,” Gallagher said.
Pocock had earlier told the Senate: “What we get back are no documents at all or just blacked-out pages … I hope we can force the government to actually start complying with the Senate.”
Over government objections, the Coalition, Greens and crossbench backed Pocock’s motion.
The government was furious about the developments, with senior sources claiming Pocock’s move – supported by the Coalition – had snubbed decades of parliament convention and tradition. Guardian Australia understands the government may seek to retaliate against the Coalition for supporting Pocock’s motion, which could include stripping Coalition members of deputy chair positions on committees.
Watt was scathing of Pocock’s move.
“David Pocock is always in here lecturing the rest of us about the importance of Senate tradition and Senate convention, and he’s just gone and chucked the toys out,” he said.
The prime minister’s office declined to comment, as did the offices of the Senate leader, Katy Gallagher, and the House leader, Tony Burke.
Liberals believed the threat of procedural retaliation was still live on Thursday, but the government had not so far yet announced any response. Liberal senator James Paterson criticised the government over what he called “authoritarian” and “completely petty” behaviour.
Pocock said the Senate was simply doing “its job under the constitution.”
“Jobs for mates is a real problem in this place, and we’ve even seen that over the last couple of years,” he told reporters on Thursday.
“The government is refusing to release a report that they said would be made public, and they have no grounds to withhold it, and we’ve been trying to get it out of them for a long time now, and we’re ratcheting up the pressure until they release it.”
