Want to know what really happens in Parliament House?
Sure, you’ve tuned into question time for the odd slanging match. But plenty more goes on in the federal House of Representatives — hours and hours of questions, debates, speeches and committee work — that many of us don’t know much about.
Bond University journalism students and Crikey have teamed up to trawl through the records for this 43rd Parliament. We’ve analysed what happened on the first 150 sitting days of this term, examining more than 3000 questions, and crunching the numbers on all the committees. We’ve uncovered who are Australia’s most active and ambitious MPs — and who are the laziest. Want to know who might be Labor’s next prime minister? You’ll find some clues in the results of this data-mining project. What topics have hogged this Parliament’s time — and which have been all but ignored? We’ll bring you that, too.
Over the coming weeks, we’ll roll out a series of stories as part of our Order in the House investigation. And if you want to cut to the chase and see how your local MP fared in our study, visit the Crikey website and plug the MP’s name into the widget on the right-hand side. Does your local member get a gold medal — or a wooden spoon?
So welcome to Order in the House. And a warning … the results won’t be welcome to every MP.
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