Alan Ferguson (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 14 February 2008, Senator Ian Macdonald asked whether the President had any power to require ministers who are correcting answers to table the corrections so that interested senators could read them immediately. At the time I said that it was the responsibility of ministers to answer the questions and to correct those answers if necessary.

The practice has always been for supplementary information provided by ministers to be incorporated in Hansard and, of course, oral corrections by ministers to their answers appear in Hansard. This makes them much more readily available than if they were simply tabled. If they are available in writing at the time of delivery, senators can ask the attendants for an immediate copy. While supplementary answers are often in writing, oral corrections to answers are often not available in writing so senators present in the chamber can only listen to them and check them in the Hansard later.

May I suggest to ministers that, when making corrections, they provide those corrections to answers in writing wherever possible. In this way, interested senators who are unable to be in the chamber when the corrections are given may nonetheless gain quick access to a copy of the corrections.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the statement.

I also, very briefly, want to urge the relevant minister, Senator Wong, to do what her more senior colleagues do and extend the courtesy to members of the opposition, if she is going to make a correction to an answer which she completely confused, of just letting the person who asked the question know so they can listen to it. In this particular instance I rang her office twice, having been told that she had corrected an answer, to try to find out what it was. I received no assistance. Other new ministers have taken the exact opposite approach and made a point of ringing me and writing to me when answers needed to be corrected, and I would just urge Senator Wong to do that in the future.

Question agreed to.