Page 3215 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 16 August 2011
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I will not read it all, but it goes on to say:
He must have a deep-seated reverence for the institution of Parliament …
And what that requires is for the Speaker to put aside party politics so that people can have confidence in that position. Indeed, House of Representatives Practice goes on to say:
Traditionally the Speaker in the House of Representatives has been a person of considerable parliamentary experience.
It says further:
One of the hallmarks of good Speakership is the requirement for a high degree of impartiality in the execution of the duties of the office.
It goes on to say:
Confidence in the impartiality of the Speaker is an indispensable condition of the successful working of procedure …
And that is the problem with this arrangement that we have and that is the problem with the statements you have made. You cannot say, “Today I am a Green.” An hour later, you cannot say, “I am the Speaker.” You are always the Speaker, first and foremost the Speaker, and you have roles which you have let down.
The problem for the government seems to be—and we have heard speeches in support of Mr Seselja’s motion today from both the Chief Minister and Minister Corbell—that they think the punishment does not fit the crime. In one way, there is only one level of punishment: you must be a good Speaker or you must go. You cannot say, “I’m going to be a reasonable Speaker today or a 70 per cent Speaker today.” You cannot do it; you just cannot do it. You are the Speaker first and foremost. Everything else is incidental. By the way, there actually should not be anything else because it compromises you and, if it compromises you, it compromises us as a place of law-makers.
We cannot have a code of conduct, a code of members’ conduct, that says, “We agree to respect and uphold the law except when I am being a Greens spokesman.” It does not work that way. It cannot work that way. When you make other decisions it taints all of your decisions because we do not know whether you are the Speaker, a Greens spokesperson or a Greens-Speaker spokesperson or whatever the combination is for the event. That is the dilemma in what we are faced with here.
Both Ms Gallagher and Mr Corbell have used words like “hypocrisy” and have said it is regrettable and have said it is unwise but they will not go through to the logical conclusion that the Speaker should either vacate the chair or he should be removed. That is the importance of the position of Speaker. We do not want to, in this place, set a new low standard for Speakers, because everything we do sets a precedent and somebody else will use it, somebody else will point to it, somebody else will also then abuse it. The role of the Speaker is quite clear-cut.
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