Page 952 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 20 March 2012
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What is Mr Hargreaves’s defence? He just attacks. He does not explain what he was doing. He just says, “You are all a bunch of serial interjectors and I am going to hold you to account.” Mr Speaker, that is a reflection on you and your control of this place.
Ms Gallagher says that our behaviour over here is somehow appalling. I can assure you that it is nothing against what the Labor Party did from 1995 to 2001 to Chief Minister Carnell. It is absolutely nothing against the attacks, the censure motions, the no-confidence motions, the language, the lies and the slurs that they cast in this place. You take it on the chin. Maybe we should not have taken it on the chin. But I can assure you that it is nothing. Mrs Dunne was here. Mr Corbell was here. He might not have had such an interesting view as I do of what was said and done. But I can assure you that it is nothing in comparison to what has happened in this place, certainly between 1998 and 2000.
The problem is that Mr Hargreaves, instead of saying, “Okay, fair cop; I got it wrong; I won’t do it again,” actually thinks he has done the right thing. He thinks that somehow he is a higher authority than the Speaker: that he has—and of course he has been here longer—more experience, more say and more call on what is appropriate behaviour in this place. He does not. That is why he has been chastised by the Speaker for what he said and what he did. And we should chastise him, members; we should not put up with this, and we should not tolerate it any longer.
We know, for instance, that in question time Mr Hargreaves is a serial abuser of the standard of the standing orders. He soaks up questions by asking questions that are clearly out of order. It all goes to behaviour. It all goes to the standards that are set. You cannot just shift to the chair and suddenly assume this mantle. It is about the serial behaviour of this individual. His behaviour brings no credit to this place. He is no longer a minister. He is no longer a whip. He should no longer be an Assistant Speaker.
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (5.42), in reply: Just imagine for a moment, if you would, members, if without any provocation Mrs Dunne in her position as Assistant Speaker decided to give a bit of a dissertation on the performance of ministers during question time. Imagine if she sat there and pontificated and considered the number of questions that she considered they had not answered fully. Perhaps they had been repetitious and/or had breached any number of standing orders. Imagine if she made a full-scale attack, from the chair, on government ministers for their performance in question time. What would we think about that? In essence, that is exactly what Mr Hargreaves did. Of course the opposition interject. That is the nature of question time in any parliament, be it a Labor or Liberal opposition. The opposition interject while members ask questions.
There is a limit; there is a tolerance. That is adjudicated on by the Speaker, and that is the form, indeed, of any Westminster parliament. Mr Hargreaves decided, without any suggestion from the Speaker and without any invitation to do so, to mount his own attack on the opposition, and he did so with one of two intents. Either (a) it was politically motivated to have a crack at the opposition or (b) it was motivated to say, “Hey, look, the Speaker’s not doing a very good job here.”
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