Queensland MPs voting on the Palaszczuk government’s voluntary assisted dying bill in 2021.Credit:Matt Dennien
“If[Opposition Leader] David Crisafulli had felt so strongly about this,why didn’t he introduce a private members bill last year or the year before?” Miles said,referencing thelack of legislationbrought forward by the LNP.
But parliamentary data shows the number of bills introduced by both sides of government had almost halved since 2009,with MPs also sitting for about 100 fewer hours last year compared with the most recent peak in 2010.
While parliament did not escape the disruption wreaked by COVID-19,the data shows a downward trend had begun since at least a decade before the pandemic.
University of Queensland political historian Chris Salisbury said that even considering the standard dips in activity during election years,and jumps after changes of government,the decline in bills being passed had reached “historical low levels”.
Former Speaker and Labor MP John Mickel,who sat in parliament from 1998 to 2012,said he believed the shift could be attributed to a years-long “hollowing-out” of public service policymaking processes.
In Queensland,he said,this could be traced back to staff departures beginning under the Bligh government and escalated under the one-term Newman government of 2012-2015.