Page 2271 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 16 June 2009
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of the House of Representatives—
is not a ruling—
is not a ruling, Mr Corbell—
and so a dissent motion, as provided for in standing order 87—
of the House of Reps—
is not in order.
Mr Corbell, you are wrong. You should simply stand and, with some courtesy, apologise to the Speaker for your tirade. You should, in fact, apologise to this place for wasting our time when you know that what you have done is wrong.
Mr Speaker, for those opposite who clearly have not read the new chapter 26, “Privilege and contempt”, which sets out the general rules and guidelines for dealing with matters of privilege and contempt, let me say that it clearly outlines the process that this follows. It is a standing order. What Mr Corbell is saying, Mr Speaker, is that you, by acting in accordance with the standing orders, are wrong—simply because it does not suit Mr Corbell and his factional colleague the Minister for Health: therefore, you have to be wrong and they have to be right.
It is quite clear that standing order 276, entitled “Privilege”, says, and I refer members to part (e):
… if, in the opinion of the Speaker, the matter merits precedence, the Speaker will inform the Member who raised the matter and the Assembly of the decision—
which you did—
and the Member who raised the matter may move a motion without notice forthwith to refer the matter to a select committee appointed by the Assembly for that purpose.
That may happen if we can get over this charade.
The problem here is that, rather than obey the rules—which he voted for: Mr Stanhope, Ms Gallagher, Mr Corbell, Mr Hargreaves, Mr Barr, Ms Burch, Ms Porter, all of us, voted for these standing orders so that we would not have this sort of politicisation of the process—what you are getting today is simply an abuse of words, an abuse of the Assembly’s time, with a flurry of statements by the minister. There is a clear political agenda.
Perhaps what Mr Corbell has done here this morning should be referred to a privileges committee. He has disparaged the office of the chair; he has asserted that the chair acts in concert in a political nature; he has made comments that it was inappropriate
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