Page 703 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 February 2012
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(e) despite this latest incident, Katy Gallagher has continued to defend John Hargreaves and has described him as “a good Labor man”; and
(f) John Hargreaves is Assistant Speaker; and
(2) calls on John Hargreaves to resign as Assistant Speaker.
The events of the last couple of weeks culminated last night in John Hargreaves resigning from the position of government whip. The events of the last couple of weeks have included John Hargreaves coming into this place and making an unprecedented attack on a community organisation, a volunteer organisation, and using inappropriate ageist comments to make that attack. We have also seen that he has been peddling notes to other members of the Assembly of opposing political parties which were quite clearly gay slurs, homophobic slurs, against his colleague Mr Andrew Barr. As a result of that, he sought to stand down from his government-appointed position as the government whip.
In his statement last night Mr Hargreaves made the point that this either does bring or risks the possibility of the Assembly and the government being brought into disrepute, and I would agree with that. I think that Mr Hargreaves’s actions have brought the Assembly into disrepute and certainly have brought the government into disrepute. He has admitted that he has exercised poor judgment.
If he and his government believe he is no longer suitable to be government whip, he certainly should not be in the position of authority within this chamber where he is performing the duties of Assistant Speaker, essentially residing in the chair of the Speaker. Let me read what the House of Representatives Practice says about the position of Speaker:
The Speaker … the representative of the House itself in its powers, proceedings and dignity … the Speaker presides over the debates of the House … and enforces the observance of all rules for preserving order in its proceedings … He must have a deep-seated reverence for the institution of Parliament … A good Speaker is not necessarily an extraordinary person, therefore; he is an ordinary person, but an ordinary person of the highest calibre … The Speaker embodies the dignity of the nation’s representative assembly … The degree of respect depends to some extent on the occupant …
And this is the point—it is about the dignity of the position; it is about the authority of the position. If Mr Hargreaves himself feels he is no longer fit to occupy the role of government whip, how on earth should we be expected to support John Hargreaves in the chair as Speaker, where he will be presiding over this place? This is the place where we have seen in the last 24 hours John Hargreaves come down and have to apologise for making ageist slurs against community volunteer organisations and come down to this place and resign as government whip for homophobic slurs against fellow member Mr Andrew Barr.
Mr Hargreaves may say that he is not ageist, he is not homophobic, he is not sexist, but what we have seen, regardless of whether he is or is not, is that he has committed
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