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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4468 ..

Mr Osborne: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is quite obvious that we on the crossbenches are at least smart enough to learn the first time.

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

MR CORBELL: If we do that at question time, you warn us for flagrantly abusing the forms of this house. I would ask you, Mr Speaker, to reflect on that as you listen to this debate. Mr Osborne, if we did that in question time, we would be warned by this Speaker for flagrantly abusing the forms of this house. We would have Mr Humphries on his feet saying that we were consistently and flagrantly abusing the forms of this house to make our political point. But when you do it, Mr Osborne, it is all right. When the Government does it, it is all right. When the Greens do it, it is all right.

But when this side of the house stands up and decides it is going to challenge an assertion of this Government, which is a legitimate role of the Opposition, we see nothing from the Speaker except a biased approach towards the enforcement of the standing orders. I see Ms Tucker shaking her head. Ms Tucker, I think you should treat this motion with a little more of the seriousness that it deserves. This side of the house is treating it with the utmost seriousness. Mr Moore and Mr Osborne should do exactly the same thing. It is not an easy thing to move a motion expressing a lack of confidence in a Speaker, and it is not something that this Opposition does lightly.

I appeal to the crossbenchers. Ultimately, it is the crossbenchers that will decide whether or not this motion is successful. The crossbenchers say a lot about cooperation in this place, the crossbenchers say a lot about the removal of adversarial politics, and the crossbenchers say a lot about the primacy of this chamber and the importance of this chamber in the decision-making process. You cannot have an effective operating process in this chamber if one side of the house is consistently and wilfully obstructed in doing its job as the Opposition by the one person who is meant to safeguard it. The one person who is meant to safeguard it is this man in the chair here, and he does not do it. He editorialises. He makes snide comments about the questions from the Opposition. I do not hear him make any snide comments about answers from the Government, although this side would like to think that that was due from time to time. I do not see the Speaker consistently enforcing the rule about members being heard in silence - far from it.

Mr Speaker, if you want to participate in the partisan political processes of this chamber, then I invite you to leave the chair and come down onto the floor of the chamber and do it, as you are quite entitled to do, as a member of this place. But you do not do it from your position as Chair. In your position as Chair you are obliged to be impartial. It seems to me that you are not willing to admit the role of the Opposition. The role of the Opposition is to scrutinise the activities of the Government. The role of the Opposition is to point out when the Government is failing in its duty to act appropriately in this place or as a government. Question time is the key time when that is meant to happen. The way we can do that effectively is if we can ask the questions that we believe are appropriate to be asked and are within the standing orders. The only other way that we can do it effectively is if we have the opportunity for Ministers to answer questions in a relevant manner.

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