Page 684 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 23 March 1993
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You have stated that my comments on 25 February called into question your impartiality as a Speaker. Madam Speaker, indeed they did. The comments reflected a longstanding and often stated concern among my colleagues in the Liberal Party on this question. I accept the logic which has caused you to seek an apology from me. An apology honours your office and its significance to the operation of this Assembly. Accordingly, I apologise for my comments on 25 February in respect of you.
Unfortunately, I do not believe that the issue of the chairmanship of the Assembly is resolved with these words. My colleagues and I continue to feel that we receive different treatment in this place to members of the Government. The problem is exacerbated by the paucity of avenues available to us to address the issue we have raised in this way. Comments on the floor of the Assembly in respect of the Speaker's impartiality are disorderly and are always required, peremptorily, to be withdrawn. Comments outside the house are, as we have just been told, a breach of privilege or even a contempt of parliament. Motions of dissent are, by your own ruling, not available to members of this Assembly.
Personal approaches that have been made to you, Madam Speaker, by members of the Opposition have also proven to be unsuccessful in resolving this matter, as have approaches to you by a Minister in the Government of which you are a member. The Administration and Procedures Committee, Madam Speaker, is another opportunity, another avenue. It advises but, I would submit, respectfully, does not direct the Speaker. My reading of parliamentary practice is that it would be improper for any committee, or even the Assembly itself, to direct the Speaker in respect of the exercise of a discretion that she exercises in her office as Speaker.
You suggest, Madam Speaker, that standing orders can be amended to effect this result. Madam Speaker, fairness is not created merely by the way standing orders in this Assembly are worded. Every parliament, no matter how voluminous its standing orders, relies on the judgment and impartiality of its chairman. If that is wanting, no rule-making will overcome its absence. Respect for the office of Speaker is not established by iron-fisted enforcement of standing orders. It is earned. My colleagues and I do not seek confrontation with you, Madam Speaker. We would greatly prefer to operate in the knowledge that the Speakership was not an issue in this Assembly. In the circumstances I do not feel that that course is open to us.
Madam Speaker, I do seek to resolve this problem and I give notice that I will raise the matter that I have raised tonight, as you have informally suggested to me, in the Administration and Procedures Committee. I do not wish to cast aspersions on my newfound colleagues on that committee but I am not hopeful that that committee is an appropriate forum to deal with this problem. I might clarify that last statement, Madam Speaker. I am not suggesting that members of the Administration and Procedures Committee are not fair. I am not suggesting that at all. I am saying that I do not consider that the Administration and Procedures Committee is appropriately empowered to deal with matters which are, with respect, a question of the personality and temperament of the Speaker. Madam Speaker, criticism of the Chair does indeed lower the standing of the Assembly in the public esteem, but so too does the perception of the unfair exploitation of power. If both these questions cannot be addressed the conflict which is centred on your office will not abate, and that will be to the detriment of all of us in this place.
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