K-Rudd Vs Lil John.... This time.. it's questionable

Federal Government Question Time

House of Representatives
19.9.07

After monitoring several pod-casts and television broadcasts of Federal Government question time I have gained a good understanding of the processes within the proceedings along with valuable new insight into the mental state of various members of parliament.

I chose to analyse a session on the 19th of September in which the Chair appropriately opened proceedings in question time by asking, “Are there any questions”
Deputy of State Julia Gillard then referred to last weeks question by Chief of Staff, Peter Phelps to Colonel Mike Kelly who accused the veteran of war crimes and compared his service to that of the Nazi’s. She then asked the Special Minister of State, Gary Nairn to justify Phelps’ actions; although this indirectly posed question was recognised by Mr. Speaker who made answering Ms. Gillard’s question optional, the minister chose to defend the Chief of Staff on grounds of free speech in an open forum. It occurred to me that the discussion between the two individuals (Deputy of Opposition and the Special Minister of State) had been long however there was no back-and-forth discussion; each time someone stood up they delivered a speech, providing all the researched facts, figures, and quotations necessary to provide credibility to their argument and discredit their opponents. This same question was rephrased by Ms. Gillard an additional two times over the course of the session asking if Mr. Nairn condoned the unpatriotic comments made and later requested Nairn’s plan to rectify the situation. Mr. Nairn was very cautious in answering these questions as to not offend anyone while simultaneously defending his party, however the majority of his defense was offense in that he used this opportunity to address the meeting with his own political agenda. The response to Ms. Gillard became so off topic that Mr. Speaker was forced to interrupt and provoke a response much to the amusement of his peers. Mr. Nairn then provided a meaningless final statement when requesting more time to discuss the issue with the Chief of Staff.

The next question was directed at the Treasurer, Peter Costello, regarding which rates and thresholds applied to the personal income tax system. The Treasurer began to respond by providing facts and figures which justified the current system while making comparisons to past Labor governments who were unsuccessful compared to the current Liberal government. I noticed that this technique was used in most responses and was very effective in discrediting the opposition. Mr. Costello then called for some etiquette from the Opposition Leader who had turned his back after initially asking the question. The Treasurer then undermined Kevin Rudd when referring to a poor response to an inquiry about economic policy in which Mr. Rudd couldn’t name a single threshold. Costello then repeated these statements a ridiculous number of times adding to the humiliation of the Labor leader. While Rudd once again turned around, the Treasurer continued to undermine Mr. Rudd associating his poor understanding of the economy to his credibility in regards to running the country.

Minister of Educational Science and Training, Julie Bishop, is then questioned in relation to any threats to school funding. She immediately responds with well researched figures which support finance allocation and condemn previous Labor policies.
Mr. Rudd then told Mr. Howard that his government has failed in regards to education; he bases this argument on the findings of an OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) document that is later branded as out-of-date by the PM. Howard then used his response to accuse the Opposition Leader of trying to deceive parliament and hence the Australian people. This provocative retort created a disruption among the assembly and Mr. Speaker issued warnings to two members. John Howard finally reminded all in attendance of the extreme success of the Liberal’s 1996 Educational policy, which was opposed by Labor and then continued to list a number of past and present errors made by Mr. Rudd.