Recent Results or Media Mentions on this issue:
State's sitting hours drought
The Advertiser, p7, September 10th, 2008—Greg Kelton, State Editor
PARLIAMENT will have sat for less than 300 hours - under six sitting hours a day - this year by the time the current session finishes. New figures compiled by Family First also show the average yearly sitting time since 2006 will have been 229 hours. … Family First's Robert Brokenshire, who spent 13 years in the Lower House as a Liberal MP, has calculated the hourly sitting times for the House of Assembly. His study shows:
FROM the 2002 election to 2006 the Parliament sat on average 394 hours during those years
THE former Liberal government sat, for its lifetime (1993-2002) on average 299 hours a year.
SINCE The 2006 election, and on the 2008 trend, by December this year, Parliament will have sat only 229 hours a year since the 2006 election.
Parliament is sitting only two days this week instead of the normal three because there will be a ceremonial opening today. "We will have a joke of a ceremonial sitting for no reason other than spin" Mr Brokenshire said. "Since the 2006 election, the Rann Government has switched off the accountability and we have a sitting hours drought"
SA in grip of parliamentary drought: Brokenshire
Adelaide Independent Weekly, Australia - Wednesday September 10th, 2008
The South Australian Parliament is going through a sitting drought, Family First MP Robert Brokenshire says. With the official opening of the new session Mr Brokenshire said since the 2006 state election the number of sitting days for the House of Assembly had fallen dramatically.
Freedoms being eroded by political correctness
The Advertiser, Tuesday 19 August 2008 - Opinion section
FAMILY FIRST Parliamentary Leader The Hon Dennis Hood MLC: Next month the Rann Government will reintroduce the Equal Opportunity Bill into Parliament and as a result South Australia is about to embark upon a journey into a realm of political correctness gone mad. It will further damaging to our state and culture of free speech, already under attack.... Political correctness is a danger to our society and culture and is the reason why Family First has now collected over 11,000 signatures against the ... Bill.
Lib leaders jumping ship
The Australian, Tuesday 24 June 2008 “Strewth” column—D D MacNicoll
FORMER South Australian Liberal president Bob Randall has joined Family First, saying his former party has moved "so far to the Left that we don't recognise it". Randall was president from 2003 to 2005 and a member of Senator Nick Minchin's ministerial staff. Randall says he will join Family First as a campaign assistant leading into the 2010 state and federal elections. The move follows the announcement by West Australian MP Dan Sullivan, a former Liberal deputy leader, that he is also joining Family First. Randall says many Liberals from the John Howard era have watched the party lose focus. "Family First is the only truly conservative political force now left in Australia," he says. Former SA Liberal minister Robert Brokenshire has been selected as Family First's replacement for Andrew Evans when he retires from SA's upper house
