In my last editorial I talked about my visit to Townsville for state parliament this week.
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I even went so far as to praise politicians for their hard work and civility having watched them in action during a debate on the new transport bill before the house, though it helped it had mostly bipartisan support (the one difference being the Opposition don't support hidden point-to-point speed cameras as they are more revenue raising than providing safety).
It seemed I spoke too soon. I wrote that editorial on Wednesday afternoon after I'd seen Queensland parliamentarians on their best behaviour. Then that evening I went to watch Question Time.
Question Time is an hour where the opposition can ask questions without notice of the premier and her ministers (with a few strategic Dorothy Dixers thrown in by government MPs to mix it up, lobbing a few easy questions at the ministers).
The hour is dominated by a large time clock displayed next to the Speaker, Curtis Pitt. It is set at three minutes and runs down to zero - the allotted time for the answer. But it takes a lot longer than three minutes to complete.
There are two problems.
Firstly the waffly non-answer answers by the premier and her ministers.
It's clear their goal is to run down the clock with "talking points" (in this case how the Opposition has neglected Townsville when in government 2012-2015).
These talking points usually do not in any way address the question.
This leads to the second problem.
The opposition is understandably angered by these tactics but responds with poor tactics of its own, constantly interjecting and shouting.
This forces the Speaker to stop the clock and adopt his best schoolmaster voice to chastise the opposition (and occasionally his own side) with constant warnings he would throw out members if they repeated their misbehaviour).
He eventually threw out one member who departed with a smile on his face.
It all just appeared to be a game, but it was a game without winners. Question Time needs a major overhaul if it is ever to be relevant and not merely theatre of the absurd.