Economic issues dominate social issues in question time in Canberra, according to a wide-ranging analysis of politicians’ performances in parliament. The study also found women MPs were more likely to ask about local issues than men were.
The House:Divided project is a large-scale data-driven project by Bond University students, which attempts to quantify political performance to see who is working the hardest in the halls of parliament – and who has barely shown up.
The project analysed the activities of all 150 MPs in the lower house, across the bulk of the current election term (166 sitting days, between 12 November 2013 and 1 January 2016), and graded them on their political performance across four categories: attendance in parliament, committee work, participation in question time (by asking or answering questions, in person or in writing) and parliamentary speeches.
The exercise is published by UnipollWatch, a project involving 28 Australian universities working with Guardian Australia during the federal election campaign.
Question time
Analysis of the question time data shows almost 40% of question time concerned questions on the budget, the economy, government roles and businesses, foreign affairs, trade and carbon pricing.
In contrast, social issues and services – including same-sex marriage, unemployment, farm finance and family planning – comprised 1.3% of questions.
An even smaller 0.2% of question time was dedicated to discussion of Indigenous affairs, which was raised only seven times – a figure that prompts questions about Indigenous representation in parliament.
The majority of Indigenous affairs issues were posed by Ken Wyatt, the country’s first Indigenous member of the House of Representatives, who became a minister in September 2015, and the opposition leader, Bill Shorten.
The analysis also demonstrates the extent that “Dorothy Dixers” are used in question time, with one-third of the questions directed at the government coming from their own party.
However, the Liberal party has not asked as many own-party questions as the 2010-13 Labor government, which asked itself 47% of questions during its term in government.
Local advocacy
The House:Divided project also examined which MPs advocated for their electorate in speeches most frequently. Local, electorate-specific issues are usually raised in one of two ways in parliament: as statements by members or as constituency statements. The strength of an MPs local advocacy was assessed by tallying the number of speeches made in these categories.
The Labor member for Canberra, Gai Brodtmann, advocated for her local electorate 164 times during the parliamentary term, more than any other politician.
Other MPs who ranked in the top 10 for local advocacy were: Lisa Chesters (Bendigo), Cathy McGowan (Indi), Joanne Ryan (Lalor), Jill Hall (Shortland), Sharon Claydon (Newcastle), Andrew Giles (Scullin), Melissa Parke (Fremantle) and Jane Prentice (Ryan).
Although all but two of the top 10 local advocates were ALP party members (McGowan is an independent and Prentice is an LNP member), when considering the entire cohort of politicians there was no significant difference in the way the two major parties performed in this category.
However, analysis of data did reveal a gender difference. The 40 female parliamentarians (with a mean of 58.33 local issues speeches) were more likely to speak about electorate issues than male parliamentarians (with a mean of 32.42 local issues speeches). Women were also more likely to make speeches than men.
MPs from rural or provincial electorates were also more likely to advocate for their electorate than metropolitan MPs (a mean of 42 speeches, versus the metropolitan mean of 37).
Attendance and committee work
Once again, Clive Palmer has has been identified as having the worst attendance in parliament, followed by Andrew Robb and Bob Katter.
Gary Gray, Julie Bishop, Steven Ciobo, Alan Tudge, Louise Markus and Anna Burke also made the top 10 worst attendance list.
Some MPs’ absences may be attributed to their ministerial portfolios.
For example, Robb’s 63 absences may be linked to his former role as minister for trade and investment and Bishop’s 25 absences were likely related to her duties as foreign affairs minister. Ciobo is also the current minister for trade and investment — although his 22 absences predate his appointment to the position in February this year.
Palmer was absent 66 times — almost 40% of the sitting days analysed — while Katter was absent 34 times, Gray 31 times, Markus and Tudge 21 times each and Burke 20 times.
In terms of length of time served on committees, Liberal party MP Dan Tehan (who served on four committees) was the most active committee worker, followed by Tim Watts (eight committees), Graham Perrett (six committees), Tony Pasin (seven committees) and Andrew Giles (six committees).
Committees investigate specific matters of policy or government administration or performance, and committee work is more likely to be done by those who don’t have a ministerial or shadow ministerial role.
You can find the report cards for your member of parliament here.
Data collected and stories compiled by Bond University journalism students: Freya Bidwell, Aydée Bigaton, Jessica Bristow, Gracie Clough, Isabella Domhoff, Taylor Eveleigh, Lauren Fenwick, Ashley Gaden, Chyna Hayden, Lily Hoffmann, Lucy Kinbacher, Jessica Lamb, Gary Muller, Sal Pellone and Chlöe Thomas.
Research design: Caroline Graham and Dr Roger Patching
Data analysis: Dr Donna Henson and Caroline Graham
Extended versions of these stories are being published on UniPollWatch, Australia’s biggest student journalism project. Guardian Australia is collaborating with UniPollWatch during the general election campaign
