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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4477 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

hear from me, often rudely, "Why do you not take the chair, Mrs Carnell?". It is not appropriate for the Government to direct the Speaker or to give any indication to the Speaker of what the Speaker should be doing, and it is even less appropriate for the Speaker to be seen to be paying any attention to that sort of message. That is why I believe the Speaker has lost control.

The next reason why I believe the Speaker has lost control is that he does not pay attention. People do not always - I am emphasising the "always" - take points of order merely to be a nuisance. The points of order are strategic and are important. It is a very foolish Speaker who does not hear. The points of order that have been repeatedly taken for three years have been in relation to questions asked. Previous Speakers had similar points of orders raised with them. What did the previous Speaker do? She spoke to her people and said, "It is about time you answered questions properly. I will not entertain the points of order if that is the nature of your answers". That is what a wise Speaker does - takes heed of the messages that are coming from the house and deals with them to defuse anger. Those points of order have gone over this Speaker's head and over the heads of some of the Independents, but the message has been clear for three years. We ask very specific questions, and the agitation begins when the obfuscation and the refusal to answer begin, as they begin in every parliament. It is nothing unusual.

My third loss of confidence point is that the nature of interjections that are generally permitted in parliaments is reasonably well discussed in the green book and that has set patterns in all parliaments. The accepted wisdom of most of what I have read is that interjections are fine until they build up to a wall which makes it impossible to tolerate them. In the House of Commons a person who can deal with interjections is a person who is held in much higher esteem by their colleagues. A strong performer in the house would never thank a Speaker for cutting out the interjections. The interjections show the strength of the person's capacity to deal with their portfolio.

That is my point of difference with Ms Tucker. I understand that it sounds like harassment. I understand that it often may go over the top. But the point of it is to test the mettle of the person on their feet. A good orator in Hyde Park or anywhere else thrives on interjection. It is what makes the difference between a person who is merely able to read a piece of paper or mount an argument and a true orator, a true debater and a true parliamentarian. Interjections, when wisely used, are very useful. This is where I believe the Speaker has lost control.

There is absolutely no provision within the standing orders that describes what a warning is. This is an arbitrary invention of this Speaker. There is nothing that calls for a warning. The Speaker is asked to keep the house in order. This Speaker has never spelt out what warnings mean. The previous Speaker of the House of Representatives, Stephen Martin, created a new rule that the parliament agreed with. A warning was given. Three shots and you were out, and he had a sin-bin process. Being an ex-rugby man, that suited him just fine. We have never negotiated that here. It is not an accepted standing order of this Assembly.

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