THE new federal Labor government has been accused by Member for Mallee Anne Webster of shirking scrutiny by scheduling a low number of parliamentary sitting days this year.
Dr Webster, now on the Opposition front bench as an assistant to regional development spokesperson Bridget McKenzie, is the latest Coalition MP to accuse the Albanese government of deliberately limiting sitting days, which she says is hypocritical.
She said in a statement released on Wednesday that since Federation in 1901, only four years, 1916, 1925, 1934 and 1937, “in the Great Depression and World War I”, have had fewer sitting days than scheduled for this year.
This was contrary to the new government’s claims it would change politics “with more transparency and integrity”.
“The role of Opposition is to hold the government to account, and Parliament is the formal environment in which that takes place,” Dr Webster said.
“The Albanese government faces no formal scrutiny while it fails to meet the Opposition in the House and Senate.
“While the world is still struggling to deal with a pandemic, the Russian and Ukraine war, the threats from China and unrest in the Pacific, global supply chain disruption, a dispatchable energy crisis that shows no sign of abating, the Albanese government sees no need to face scrutiny.”
Dr Webster said just 74 sitting days, across both the House of Representatives and the Senate, had been scheduled for 2022 and this was “not a good indication that integrity and transparency will begin with the Labor government”.
The Coalition held government and control over sitting days for the first five months of the year, however, and the House of Representatives sat for just 11 days before the May election. History records that the limitation of sitting days before an election is a common political tactic by governments.
Dr Webster said the former government had also proposed 11 sitting weeks after the election, compared to Labor’s eight, although the Coalition’s election loss means whether this actually would have happened can never be known.
A spokesperson for the government said that “Ms Webster seems to have forgotten that the former Government she was a member of had only 11 sitting days in the first half of 2022 and refused to implement a national anti-corruption commission”.
“Labor will legislate a powerful, transparent and independent national anti-corruption commission this year. We look forward to Ms Webster crossing the floor and voting with Labor to pass this legislation.”
According the the Federal Parliament’s website, which is independent of any party, the House of Representatives has averaged 67 sitting days a year since 1901.
The next parliament, the 47th since Federation, is scheduled to sit for two weeks from next Tuesday.
The government will deliver a new Budget in the parliament on October 25.
