The Leader of the Opposition began by trying to move an urgency debate....leave wasn't granted...it took 20 minutes to go through the process because instead of taking the refusal on the voices the Opposition insisted on a division. Then the seconder, Joe Hockey, was gagged but in the 30 seconds allowed before the Leader of the House (Albanese) got to his feet Hockey screamed in a most unparliamentary way ...what must the Gallery have thought of democracy in action.
Then the erstwhile member for Kennedy, wild-cannon Bob Katter, got up and did the same. Again although it was obvious the gag was going to applied...we had to have three divisions...and this time a 10 second rant from the leader of the Nationals. What game playing (on both sides). Another 20 mins
I toyed with the idea of trying to calculate how much it actually cost to have the whole House of Reps sitting around on their backsides playing meeting procedure...but I'll leave that up to you
Most receiving a salary in excess of $120,000 per annum. And generous allowances
If you assume they may work 60 hours a week for 48 weeks of the year then each person's posturing cost $40 or so and there are 150 of them
Of course not all were present!!
And some are paid much more.
This doesn't also allow for the staff of the House.
Or the costs of running it.
So I didn't bother!
For those who think Question Time is a waste any way.
Well yesterday was even worse.
By some chance I happened to be awake after midnight when it was being replayed. Fortunately they had the good sense to not replay the crap that passed for democracy yesterday afternoon
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