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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4464 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

He was taken to task today after warnings not only today, but also yesterday, by the Speaker. He was told in no uncertain terms that he would have to curtail that behaviour. He refused to do so, and the inevitable happened. The Speaker exercised the authority of the house and of the Chair, and named him. The house then, as is appropriate in the circumstances, suspended him from the service of the house. If you people over there are so blind as not to see what kind of game is being played by your leader - and, of course, you are not, because you are part of that same game - then I have great pity for your lack of perspicacity. But, of course, you are not unaware of what is going on. You know perfectly well what the game is. You are all playing that game, and you are all part of that process.

Mr Speaker, Mr Whitecross said that Mr Berry's behaviour in this place is consistent with normal practice and parliamentary procedures as seen in other parliaments. Let me remind you that members of oppositions, particularly of other parliaments, do regularly get excluded for that sort of behaviour. So, if you expect them to be suspended from the service of the house in other parliaments and say that that is perfectly normal, then you should not be complaining when it happens in this parliament, should you?

Mr Speaker, I think that those opposite know perfectly well that this is a shallow attempt to defend Mr Berry's behaviour. To describe it as a one-off interjection, I have to say, strains the credibility of anybody who has been listening to this debate. Go back and look at Hansard. Go back and listen to a tape of the proceedings in question time today and yesterday. Add up how many times - - -

Mr Wood: I would like to do that. Let us run it.

MR HUMPHRIES: I invite you to do so, Mr Wood. Add up how many times interjections have been made and other steps unacceptable under the standing orders have been taken by Mr Berry. You go and add them up. You know that they would run into pages upon pages.

Ms McRae: I think we will check that against your record, too, Mr "Standing Orders" Humphries, Mr "Points of Order" Humphries.

MR HUMPHRIES: Move a motion against me as well, if you want to, Ms McRae; but that is the fact. To say otherwise, I think, Mr Speaker, is a demonstration of the extreme bias exhibited already by those opposite. This is no defence of you, Mr Speaker; but indicating that members of the Opposition have attracted more warnings, more overrulings and so on in the course of proceedings in this place does not necessarily reflect bias on the part of the Speaker. It reflects very often the way in which oppositions may feel that they need to behave in this place to make an impression. I suggest that members go back and examine the Hansard for the period during which Ms McRae was the Speaker of this place and see who was subject to most of those sorts of rulings at that time.

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