Mr PRICE (12:38 PM) —Again, it is a privilege to rise and speak on this report, Arrangements for second reading speeches. In fact, I understand I have more than the two minutes that I had to talk about it previously in the House. It is heartening that the members for Franklin and Stirling on this side have spoken positively about the report, as has the government speaker, the member for Mackellar.

I fundamentally believe two things. The first is that we all come here as members of political parties—or stating quite firmly that we are Independents—but, in discharging our party responsibilities we should not lose sight of being good parliamentarians. This report goes to the core of that. The second is that, as an institution, this party needs to hang on to its core values but it also needs to adapt and change. Interestingly, this report came about on the initiative of the Speaker, who wrote to the committee specifically requesting that the committee consider his proposal, which was essentially to reduce second reading debate speeches and to allow for a five-minute period of questioning.

I am sure that the chair of the committee will not mind me mentioning that the member for Batman has, in a number of reports, always consistently urged the committee to get a representative group of people—sometimes just the Leader of the House and the Manager of Opposition Business—to assess their views on proposals. In this case, most unusually but quite appropriately, the Speaker; your good self, Mr Causley, as the Deputy Speaker; the Second Deputy Speaker; the chief whips; and the whips were all invited to a conference to allow the committee to tap into those who the committee felt had the most expertise to deliver to the committee. We benefited from that. I place on record the fact that people like yourself, Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, and the Speaker are very busy people, as are the Leader of the House and the Manager of Opposition Business. Without wanting to divulge information from what is now an in-camera conference, it is fair to say that there was very broad support for the Speaker's proposal.

However, as a way of trying to introduce this proposal and make most members feel comfortable about it, a specific proposition of allowing members to opt in or to opt out was incorporated in the proposals. I want to emphasise that from my perspective this was a means of facilitating the introduction of the proposal by allowing people to be comfortable with it. An individual member might, on a couple of occasions, announce quite early that they were opting out and not allowing questions, but in future might very well feel confident enough to opt in. Let us hope that all members would opt in.

The report makes it clear that at some point hopefully the government will trial this. The committee will reach a decision as to whether or not that provision should remain as part of the proposed alteration to the sessional orders. I for one signal here and now that I believe that we should adhere to the original proposition that the Speaker put before us: namely, that everyone should be able to take a question. The honourable member for Franklin pointed out, quite rightly, that a member on your own side might ask a question and, in answering it, you are not confined to any time limit. You might take the full extra five minutes to answer that one question. We are not trying to be tough or restrictive; we are trying to get at the heart of what the Speaker wanted—and that was a degree of spontaneity in the chamber, for which, as the honourable member for Franklin says quite rightly, this chamber has developed a reputation second to none. This is the chamber where interventions now apply. Members on either side are able to rise and seek to intervene to ask a question.

One can be critical of the fact that when you go into the House there are so few members present unless there is high drama or it is question time. In part this proposal is aimed at trying to attract more members than the obligatory two, other than those at the table, who are usually in the House. The most common questions we are asked when schoolchildren visit the building are: `Why aren't there more people? Why aren't more members in the chamber?'

Over time, we have been trying to do more and more things in fewer sitting days. When I say that, I refer to the party committee meetings that one needs to go to—and one cannot dispense with those party committee meetings—and of course there are parliamentary committees. In fact, in this parliament the House has created an additional three committees. So people are very much tied up in their committee work, let alone just trying to get through the grind of the paperwork that still pours into your office, even though you may be in Canberra. I am not trying to be critical of members not being in the chamber. I do sincerely believe that we need to address the issue of reforming committees.

I am not trying to wander too far from the report, but I do not think you can make the point about the time that committees are taking without referring to the fact that the Procedure Committee under the former chairman, the late Peter Nugent, the member for Aston, did review the committee system after 10 years of operation. The only sustained and probably bitter argument that I ever had with Peter—I also served with him on the Joint Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee—was because he declined to look at the funding and the staffing of committees. It seems to me to be absurd that you can do a review of the committee system without looking at the staffing and the money that is going in—particularly now, since his untimely passing. In this parliament we have added three committees and not one dollar or one staff member to service them. We are straining not only members in that we have to participate in more committees; more dangerously, we are straining the resources of the committee secretariat. I have spoken on this on quite a number of occasions. My own view is that we do need to invest in democracy, we need to put more money and more staffing into committees, and we have to limit the number of committees. We need to have fewer committees, not more committees.

Getting back to the report, I think the chair of the committee can be well satisfied with the six reports she has tabled as chair of the Procedure Committee. We have been very busy as a Procedure Committee.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. I.R. Causley)—Order! There is a division in the House. We will finish business of the Main Committee now.

Mr PRICE —I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Main Committee adjourned at 12.48 p.m.