Question time will be dramatically transformed and the rambling questions and answers of MPs curbed under parliamentary reforms negotiated by the three independent MPs who hold the key to a Labor or Coalition government.
A draft paper of the reforms was issued yesterday by independent NSW MP Rob Oakeshott, who has led the push for an overhaul of the way Parliament operates since the hung election result.
The reforms are regarded as the last sticking point before the independents - Mr Oakeshott, Bob Katter and Tony Windsor - decide who to support in a minority government.
Mr Katter, who joined Mr Oakeshott for dinner in Canberra after they spent Saturday in their respective Canberra offices, said the trio was hoping to make a decision today or by tomorrow at the latest.
Mr Windsor, who was on his property outside Tamworth yesterday, delivered a blow to the Coalition's hopes of forming government by backing Labor's $43 billion national broadband network, criticising the Opposition's cheaper alternative as a ''retrograde policy'' that would create a digital backwater in rural Australia.
Mr Windsor, briefed by senior officials from the Department of Broadband last week, said he had been convinced that ''you do it once, you do it right, you do it with fibre''.
Key aspects of the crossbenchers' draft reforms agreed to by Labor and the Coalition are one-minute limits on questions and four-minute limits on answers during question time to cut obfuscation, replacing the Charter of Budget honesty with a Parliamentary Budget Office to provide independent costings, greater authority for committees, and measures to allow private members' bills.
The major parties, while at loggerheads over the definition, have also acknowledged the call for an increase in the independence of the parliamentary Speaker's role.
"At the heart of this document is an effort to increase the authority and opportunity for all 150 MPs - and by extension their communities - so more voices can be involved in the Parliamentary decision-making process," Mr Oakeshott said.
The Coalition is adamant the Speaker be chosen from a non-government party - the opposition, the Greens or one of the crossbenchers.
''This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to put through proper reforms,'' manager of opposition business Christopher Pyne said.
''We don't see this process will have any meaning if the Speaker is not truly independent and if the Speaker is drawn from the government, regardless of whether they are in the party room or not, they are not independent. It is important the chamber not be a cipher for the executive as well as tedious, pedantic and boring as it has been under the government.''
Manager of government business Anthony Albanese hailed the reforms as significant, saying they were ''aimed at harnessing the contribution of all 150 members of the House of Representatives''. But he did not support the opposition's Speaker proposal.
The three rural independents were assisted in the negotiations by former Howard government advisers Arthur Sinodinos and Graham Morris and Labor strategists Bruce Hawker and Simon Banks.
With last week's agreement with the Greens and the support of Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie, Labor is guaranteed 74 votes and the Coalition 73. Either side needs at least 76 votes to govern.
The draft reforms came as two new opinion polls showed most voters want the three rural independents to back Labor.
A JWS Research/Fairfax poll found 37 per cent want the country trio to support Labor compared with 31 per cent opting for a Liberal minority government. But 26 per cent preferred to go back to the polls. The poll showed that if another election were held it would most likely result in another hung parliament.
Another newspaper survey showed 47 per cent of voters wanted the independents to back Labor, compared with 39 per cent for the Coalition.
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