A more considered person would say don't dump it — cherish it, make it matter once again. It's quite simple. Our elected representatives owe the voters a better process. Question time needs to break out of its bleary-eyed, bitchy malaise and take a long, hard look at itself. As a mechanism for genuine accountability, it's a joke. As a spectacle, it's pathetic — community theatre, not even Off Broadway. As a focal point for the political day it confirms the most crushing of truths: politics is progressively breaking all of our hearts. We who report on politics have to share culpability. We enable the rubbish we witness by not declaring it rubbish. In an attempt not to go mad, Canberra political reporters have lurched into the practice of cracking jokes and effectively talking among ourselves until some kind person blows the whistle at 20 questions. Its sheer awfulness has a strange lulling effect — like the victim of an abduction, you slowly develop Stockholm syndrome, becoming too worn down to hope for something better. This was my state of being until last Wednesday night, when I tuned in to the House of Commons question time-style debate in Britain convened in the wake of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

In two gripping hours, British Prime Minister David Cameron answered 138 questions pertaining to what he knew, his decision-making and his relationships with executives from News International. The exchanges, moderated by an adroit Speaker with well honed reflexes for containing frippery and grandstanding, was fast, free flowing and informative. Oddly, given the high political stakes involved for Cameron, the tone of the debate was respectful; striking a functional balance between persistent interrogation, critique and basic civility. Watching that broadcast was more effective than a dose of smelling salts. Water-cooler discussion in Canberra the next day was alive with it. Did you see the Commons debate? Did you see politics actually working? Most intriguing for many observers was the apparent freedom of the discussion, symbolised by Cameron's tendency to speak and react like a human being. At one point, the Prime Minister simply growled in frustration and sat down. (Imagine Julia Gillard, in minority government and, like him, under siege, having the confidence to do that.) And these backbenchers who leapt to their feet asked actual questions, seemingly beyond the control of their puppet masters on the frontbench. No three paragraphs of drivel supplied by the leader's office — actual questions soliciting information. We shouldn't be too credulous, of course. Presumably there were tactics, presumably there was discussion and war gaming by the brains trusts of both government and opposition about lines of attack, about what would be owned and what would be "finessed"; presumably Cameron delivered carefully prepared formulations for the most serious questions.

Politics doesn't change its spots just because it occurs in a different hemisphere. And at one level it's completely unfair to compare a special sitting of the British Parliament in some extraordinary circumstances with a routine question time in Australia. The British outing last week was a special debate, with conditions allowing spontaneous questions and free-flowing exchange — a prime ministerial statement followed by supplementary questions without the requirement for notice. The culture of the British parliamentary system apparently allows the legislature to cut its jib to fit the circumstances; parliamentarians there must be a more flexible bunch than their counterparts here, folks who like what they know and know what they like — the opportunity to declaim with limited interruption, not necessarily the opportunity to interrogate one another. Truth is, the occasion in London was highly significant, and the British Parliament rose to it. Optimists argue the same would be true here: when questions are being raised that go to the very heart of power, whether significant institutions are healthy or corrupt, the Australian Parliament would also rise. You'd hope so. But given current practice, you wouldn't necessarily bet the house on it. The Australian Parliament would do well to study the British example last week. It might be a downpayment on bringing a frustrated and disenchanted community back to politics.

Katharine Murphy is The Age's national affairs correspondent. Follow the National Times on Twitter: @NationalTimesAU