I'm not an expert on the Australian system, but there is always the need and opportunity for review and evolution. Nobody, no particular Parliament, has it right. Our culture is different. Parliament is partisan, that is why we're here. We're here to debate, and hopefully come to an agreement, and the majority vote is deemed to be an agreement.
We can be vociferous in our opposition, but we come to an agreement without pulling out the guns, and that's a wonderful thing in this country. We don't have to worry about these kinds of things—the ways they resolve it in other countries. As long as we can do that, and do it with an intellectual commitment to serving our constituents.... The partisanship is when you don't have the intellectual support underpinning your debate, and that is why I think it's important for the committee to look at the program evaluation to ensure that you have substance by which you can debate.
Anybody can throw political barbs across the table, and one-liners abound, but they don't do anything. If you really want to make a contribution to the way this government, any government, manages the country, Parliament needs documentary analysis before it to make that informed opinion.
The government governs subject to the approval of Parliament. Parliament does not govern. It holds the government accountable for the way it governs in the Westminster model, and that is why you need to have the information with program X and program Y and ask whether it being done to serve the people well.
When you have that information and ask these questions, and you table your report and say that we as a Parliament report to the government that we feel that you should be changing your focus on this particular program, or that it's not being managed effectively, or that it can be done in a better way, I'm sure the government would welcome that.