Page 460 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 21 February 2012
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MR SESELJA: In relation to the Labor government?
MR SPEAKER: No. Whilst Mr Hargreaves was taking the point of order you voiced your addition to Mr Hanson’s comment. I think it was somewhat inappropriate.
MR SESELJA: I think the words I said to Mr Hargreaves were, “Don’t you think it’s true?” I asked a question of him. I did not make an assertion.
MR SPEAKER: You know it was inappropriate, given that Mr Hargreaves has taken—
MR SESELJA: I withdraw.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you. Can we focus on the suspension of standing orders, Mr Seselja.
MR SESELJA: I am, Mr Speaker. I have gone in some detail to the fact that they should not be suspended because Ms Gallagher has already responded to this very point. She has had the opportunity in the Assembly. I think what we are seeing today is a demonstration that the process that has been put in place is not going to be respected by the Labor Party, that it is simply part of a political witch-hunt in an election year, making grubby allegations in the Assembly under parliamentary privilege that you are not prepared to back up outside. Now she is desperate to continue to have the conversation in the chamber and to waste the Assembly’s time because she did not get her statement right last week, because she must have been informed that she looked a little bit pathetic when she had screamed blue murder a couple of days before and then she came back and said, “Well, you know, what do you say about all this?” That was the response, because she had the opportunity and she had nothing.
She has now gone away and she is going to presumably manufacture further allegations and seek to undermine the very process that has been put in place. If the opposition are going to be asked to comply with a process that is not applied to our political opponents, that is clearly part of a political witch-hunt, then at the very least the people who put in place that political process should respect the process that they have put in place. Otherwise this will have absolutely no validity and it will be seen as the election year political mud-slinging of a Labor Party that are desperate, as we see this morning, to talk about anything but their record in office, desperate to talk about anything other than the massive deficits that they are racking up.
Mr Corbell: Relevance, Mr Speaker. He is debating the matter.
MR SESELJA: Well, it goes to your motivation. She has had the opportunity to speak. Why does she want the opportunity to speak again?
Mr Hargreaves: A point of order, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Order! One moment, Mr Seselja, thank you. Mr Hargreaves.
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