Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Hansard source

Before I ask specific questions, I would like to have some indication as to whether the parliamentary secretary is going to adopt the practice of the minister previously, which is: if he cannot give an answer to a question he continues to read out blurb from the budget papers, which in no way responds to the question asked and just takes up five minutes of time, or whether we can go to the practice that used to pertain in this consideration in detail—which, if you like, is more of an estimates hearing for the lower house—whereby we can ask a question, have it responded to and have a to-and-fro of information without someone from the government getting up and speaking for five minutes and then the minister taking another five minutes and wasting the entire period.

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