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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 4 Hansard (27 March) . . Page.. 904 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

know; there is no provision made there for interjections. Is there to be a little stopwatch which is stopped whenever an interjection starts and is started again afterwards? I dread to think how the poor Clerk would handle that.

The second objection which was raised to the handling of question time on the last occasion was raised by Mr Stanhope, who said the reasons that the government's behaviour was outrageous on that day were, firstly, that the answer went on for too long-I have already addressed that issue-and, secondly, that it included a personal attack on the secretary of the ANF. With the very greatest of respect to that lady, there is no provision in our standing orders which prevents a member from making an attack on anybody they please, with a small number of exceptions. Those exceptions include other members, members of the judiciary, the monarch and people like that. With those exceptions, there are no limits on whom one may attack. With great respect, it is a matter of personal judgment whether one makes such attacks.

Mr Speaker, this is a case of saying, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Whom here has not used a speech in this place to make an attack on somebody outside this place? I doubt that any of us can rise and make that claim. So why should the minister whose responsibility it is to keep the health system in this territory ticking over be blamed for retaliating in this place against a person who has been attacking him in most personal terms in the last six months? Why should that be used as a ground for the government being blamed for what happened in question time on that day? Again, could someone explain that to me? I do not quite understand that.

Mr Speaker, I contend that the government's behaviour in this place has been appropriate and that we are no more sinning in this place than sinned against; that is, that there are people in this place who continually abuse standing orders, repeatedly abuse standing orders, and whose behaviour apparently does not come into account in this exercise but who ought to be held to be contributing to the instability of our question time.

I remind members that on the day in question, the Thursday of the last sitting week, Mr Berry came into this place and put up a sign, the words of which were in breach of standing orders if nothing else. The fact of its being waved in this chamber surely constituted a grave breach of standing orders-if not the letter, then surely the spirit, of standing orders. Mr Berry was not held to account for that. He was not expelled from the chamber; he was not asked to withdraw. In fact, he put the placard beneath his desk and had it there presumably ready to raise later had the opportunity again presented itself. However, apparently, it was the government's behaviour which contributed to the breakdown of the Assembly on that day. Again, I do not understand that.

Mr Speaker, there are huge dollops of hypocrisy being handled in this debate and I think that we need to consider our position. It was utterly wrong of the Assembly to leave the Speaker high and dry on the last occasion, utterly wrong, and I do not resile from that statement one iota. I suppose Labor might be forgiven for saying that they are entitled to vote against the Speaker in those circumstances. The measure seems to be that therefore those on the crossbench bear the responsibility of fixing it. I am not quite sure about how that works. I have to say that I certainly expected better of Mr Kaine, who has been in this chamber for a long time. His not supporting the Speaker's position was most unfortunate.

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