Quiet obedience can never serve Labor MPs well

No one could take away that right from him.

I might as well have been speaking Swahili. Clearly, I was not getting through to him.

"Try to imagine for one moment Winston Churchill's reaction if told that he could only ask a question in the House of Commons after it had been vetted by a tactics committee.

"Then consider the likely reactions in our parliament of Arthur Calwell, Eddie Ward, Jim Killen, Billy Wentworth, Jim Cairns, Bert Kelly and Gough Whitlam.

"See what I mean?"

How had it come to this?

Probably through a mixture of ignorance and arrogance, for when I raise the matter with incumbents the look of disbelief is wondrous to behold. Backbencher rights? It is beyond their comprehension. Most weren't aware of what they had lost.

Most of the 162 questions asked by backbenchers in the current parliament were drafted by the tactics committee and handed out to backbenchers. Unbelievable.

The practice became entrenched when Labor returned to Opposition in 1996. A massive loss of seats and 13 years in government ensured only a handful of Labor MPs remembered what question time was like in Opposition.

All wisdom, the executive decided, resided with the front bench. It didn't occur to them that denying backbenchers the right to cross-examine ministers was not only outrageous but politically stupid.

When I suggested to my friend that he buck the system and jump up and ask a question, he paled visibly.

I understood why. He would be disciplined, have his preselection threatened and lose any chance of promotion.