Bert Kelly, “Question timing,” The Advertiser, December 23, 1977, p. 4.
Published three days later as “A time when the question’s the thing,” The Age, December 26, 1977, p. 7.

Question Time in Parliament is often interesting.

Ministers can find it somewhat daunting as they sit there wondering what skeletons may come tumbling out of their cupboards. Backbenchers often watch the performance of their ministerial colleagues and think how much better they themselves would have performed.

A good, well-timed question can make quite an impact. For instance, in September 1964, the Government was contemplating imposing a levy on hens. I asked the Minister for Primary Industry:

Is he aware that most of the eggs produced in SA are produced by flocks containing less than 50 birds? Is the levy to be paid on all flocks containing over 20 birds? Will this mean that each flock will have to be counted by an inspector? Will the Minister tell me how this will be done in my case, as most of my fowls live either in the header or in trees?

That broke the House up and I thought Sir Robert Menzies would fall off his chair. But the difficulty exposed in the question led to the scheme being rethought in a minor way.

I’ve had a lot of luck with questions. For instance, when we were in Opposition there were some criticisms in our party room because the Leader and his Deputy were asking too many questions, thus limiting the rest of us. (There is a convention that if either of the leaders rises, he gets priority over the backbenchers.)

I defended the leadership’s right to lead but I explained that I was pregnant with the best question ever conceived and I had been jumping up and down to attract the Speaker’s attention so often and so vigorously as to be dangerous to a man in my condition.

When I eventually asked my question the House listened attentively. I asked the Treasurer:

Last week the Treasurer told us about his policy of using deficit spending to lower the present level of unemployment. How is his solution of burying the unemployment problem under a mountain of money actually working out? If printing money is a good solution for the unemployment problem, why not print more of the stuff and get rid of the unemployment problem altogether?

Dr Cairns rose enthusiastically to the bait. “The Government,” he said, “might be doing exactly that.” Many knowledgeable observers pinpoint that answer as the beginning of Dr Cairn’s end.

There are other ways of being lucky. In November 1962 Mr McEwen (as he then was) was bestriding the political world like a colossus. I summoned up the courage to ask a loaded question about the independence of the Tariff Board. Mr McEwen always found me irritating because I was the first MP to question his policies, but this question got under his skin. He was reasonable early in his answer but towards the end he did his block.

Now, for a new and modest backbencher to be attacked by so eminent a person as Mr McEwen was a great joy to me. I tried to look bitterly hurt but knowing that the outburst would draw attention to my question and my cause I was well content.

The next question I asked Mr McEwen was in August 1963. It reads:

This question is asked of the Minister for Trade without notice but with trepidation. In October last year the Minister said in this House, “Obviously the Tariff Board in effectively carrying out its advisory duties must keep within its sights the objectives of Government policy — the objectives I have outlined today and as given in Government statements from time to time.” Have any such statements been made by the Government between the time when the Minister made that statement and now? If so, will he tell me on what dates they were made and what the subjects were?

When the “without notice but with trepidation” came out the whole House fell silent. The question was a bit like “Have you stopped beating your wife?”

It exposed the vital importance of having a truly independent Tariff Board and it is hard to see how the Tariff Board could be independent if it had its ear to the ground listening for speeches that might have been made from time to time by Cabinet Ministers.

Before the Melbourne Cup in 1976 I was toying with asking some question or other but some instinct warned me to hold off. You must realise that once you ask a question you often have to wait for weeks to get another chance. The Melbourne Cup that year was won by a New Zealand horse and as we filed into the chamber after listening to the cup, I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t asked a question the week before.

I then queried the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs (Mr Howard):

Because of the consistently strong competition from New Zealand will the Minister see what can be done to put a tariff on New Zealand horses in order to prevent their running faster than our home produced horses?

The Minister floundered so much that the Speaker accused him of weighing in light. But it was a happy question and the House enjoyed it, I think even more than did Mr Howard.

One of the last, but not least, of my questions was to Mr Fraser on February 22, 1977, and this question, as well as the answer, exposed the gaps in Mr Fraser’s understanding on tariff matters. It was:

I refer to the Prime Minister’s statement to the Melbourne State College on February 21, in which he said that because of rising labour costs employers were tending to use machines rather than people in the productive process and if tariff protection was reduced this trend would worsen. Does not the Prime Minister realise that replacing manual labour with machines has been a continuing process since Adam started farming and Eve started spinning? Does the Prime Minister want us to go back to farming with horses rather than tractors because by so doing we employ more labour? Should we not use hand looms instead of power looms for the same reason, or wheelbarrows instead of trucks? Does not the main hope for increasing our standard of living rest on increasing productivity? Is not the replacement of men by machines an integral and important part of the process?

Later that day Mr Fraser asked me how I felt and I replied that I was fearful that I was getting too old and nervous because I had left out the final question which was:

Will the Prime Minister assure me that this display of primitive Ludditeism is only a temporary aberration?

I wish now that I hadn’t drawn back because someone, somehow, will have to knock some tariff sense into the man and I won’t be there to do it any more!