...] all the media focus is on the political contest and the mostly empty and meaningless theatre of Question Time.  But it is the legislation which directly affects our lives, not the political point scoring and [...

Its true that each time the President is elected by the Senate (Speaker in the House of Reps) has always (at least since the two party system solidified) come from the party in government, even when – as at present that party neither commands a majority or is even the single largest party.

In theory the Libs could have tried to do a deal with Fielding and Xenophon and tried to keep the Senate President’s role. However this is one of those conventions that both major parties seem determined to stick to.

However, I really don’t think it would solve the problem much. Because the Senate Presidency is normally only chosen when Senators elected in the previous election takes their seat (that is, the first sitting after July 1 following the previous half-Senate election, not straight after the election like in the Reps), there have been occasions where the government has changed at the election and the President has been from the Opposition party for six months or so.

This is what happened after the most recent election, when the Lib’s Alan Ferguson stayed President for the sittings in the first six months of 2008, even though Labor was in government. It didn’t improve the answers much – as the President always says, they can draw a Minister’s attention to the question and they can even rule the Minister is not being relevant, but they cannot force the Minister how to answer the question or tell them what to say.

Maybe if the President had the power to sit the Minister down if they presistently refused to answer the question, it might improve things a bit. But when it all boils down to it, if someone is determined to avoid a question, they will. Short of injecting them all with some sort of truth serum, I’m not sure how you can force them to answer, regardless of who sits in the Presiden’ts chair.

It is a bloody waste of time otherwise (except for when it can be later used to show X has misled parliament). I just don’t get it, an opposition must get so frustrated that the minister isn’t answering the question, then when they form government they forget about how frustratingly useless the whole process is.