Page 2356 - Week 08 - Friday, 21 June 1991
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MR PROWSE (8.38): Mr Deputy Speaker, again I have been asked to comment as Speaker, and I am also commenting from the floor as an MLA; it is very difficult to be in the two chairs at the same time. The situation, as I see it, is that this is a momentous occasion for this Assembly. We have been brought, once again, into ridicule over the last sitting day. It is a sad day; it is an historical day; and I hope that it is one that will never repeat itself.
Today, on two occasions, I have been asked to vote in a particular way as Speaker, if I were to retain my speakership. This has happened to me in this Assembly on other occasions. Each time that this has happened, I have been a man of integrity; I have put my speakership on the line and gone straight down the middle. I will not be bought. I cannot be bought. I will never be bought.
The situation is that the Rally people have put themselves on the cross benches. They have said on numerous occasions, "We do not want to be part of either government or opposition". The Rally people have stated their position. So, I believe from my recollections, has Mr Moore. He wants to be on the cross benches.
Mr Duby: This is claptrap.
MR PROWSE: That is the statement that was made to me on numerous occasions, and, if anybody suggests that that is claptrap, I will go back to my Speaker role and state that the chairs had to be moved so that they were on the cross benches. That is why this Assembly has been reorganised, to allow for cross benches.
If that is the case, those people in the Rally and on the cross benches have no right to vote as the Opposition and to call on a Leader of the Opposition. Mr Duby and Ms Maher, and perhaps Mr Stevenson, certainly have that right. That right is given to them because I believe that they see themselves as opposition.
The circumstance is that these people, these Rally people, have again brought this place into disrepute with their manoeuvrings and double-dealings. That is an insult to this Assembly, and the reading of Hansard will show this in future. To me, the upholding of the Westminster system is the most important role that I have been charged with over the period that I have been Speaker. I have never deviated from that. I have been straight down the middle. I have put party politics aside. I have always represented the fair situation as the Speaker.
A situation has once again been put to me; but on the first occasion today it was put to me that I either abstain from a vote or vote for Mr Duby and, were I to do so, I would get votes as the Speaker. I told the person who put that case to me that under no circumstances would I deviate from
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