Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, can I apologise to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to members who are here, because the honourable member for Perth, who one might say was the subject of this report, clearly would have been pleased to avail himself of the opportunity to speak to it. But he did wish me to express his appreciation for the work the Procedure Committee has done in relation to this report and to endorse the recommendations made by the committee. He would claim that he has been exonerated by it. I am pleased to put those comments on the public record.

We have a very quaint ceremony when we elect a Speaker. After the process of nomination has been concluded and a ballot, if necessary, is conducted, two members of the House drag the newly elected Speaker to his chair in the House. That tradition is a very ancient one whereby Speakers from time to time would lose their heads, having stood up against the monarchy in disputes between the parliament and the monarchy. I suppose the modern interpretation of that tradition is that the Speaker is always required to defend members of the House against the executive of the day—being, if you like, the present-day incarnation of the monarchy. I feel very strongly about that aspect of the role of the Speaker.

This report came about because of an incident on 10 October 2006. According to the report:

Following question time on 10 October, the member for Perth, Mr S Smith MP, moved a motion to suspend standing and sessional orders to enable him to outline specific differences between an Australian Workplace Agreement and a collective agreement at a worksite. Following closure of Mr Smith—

that is, a gag motion was moved and carried, preventing him from speaking—

and the seconder, the motion was ruled out of order as the written motion provided was substantially different from the terms read out by the Member in seeking to move the motion.

I have no comment to make about that, but what precipitated the report was the then Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations moving:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the House from condemning forthwith the Member for Perth.

And then of course a vote was taken.

A number of issues are involved here. One is the tradition of the House and, more specifically, contained in the standing orders of not condemning a member except by way of a substantive motion that admits a distinct vote of the House. So my first point—and I think this is the point the committee report makes—is that, were we voting to suspend the standing orders or were we voting to condemn the member? Were some people in favour of suspending the standing orders but not condemning the member? My strong view is that this motion was out of order. It performed gymnastics with the standing orders and should have been ruled out of order.

If this motion had been carried then you would have expected, as undesirable as it is, a follow-on substantive motion detailing what the charges were. This is another grave charge. The member was condemned because the motion was carried but the charges were not outlined. The basis for the condemnation was not outlined. These are things that we need to strenuously avoid in the future. Whether they involve a Labor Party member, a National Party member or a Liberal Party member does not matter to me. It is the principle that I think is so important here.

In saying that I believe it was out of order I need to say that there was a dissent motion moved and the Speaker’s ruling was upheld. So, if you like, in terms of the record of the House, the ruling was correct, but I beg to differ. I strongly disagree with the rolling in of these two motions.

I have a great deal of regard and respect for the Clerk—and I do not think I am on my own in expressing that view—but I do very strongly disagree not with the recommendations of his submission, which have ultimately been picked up, but with the other examples that the Clerk gave that I think are completely different. It is true that the opposition have moved to suspend the standing orders a lot. The motions never get carried, but we move to suspend the standing orders to call on ministers to take action, produce records or whatever. These are in the Clerk’s submission. None of those motions actually ask the House to make a judgement about those matters. They were not asking you to make a judgement; they were actually calling for action.

That is where I disagree with the Clerk. I will quote from 2.24 in the report, which refers to examples of opposition suspensions. It states:

In none of the cases cited in the Clerk’s submission is the House asked to judge the action of the subject of the suspension motion in the same terms as that of the 10 October motion – in no case was a motion of condemnation proposed or passed.

Happily, I hope that this report’s recommendation to split motions will make sure this never arises, but again I place on record my distaste for the Olympian gymnastics of the standing orders that allowed this motion in the first place to be moved and then to stand.

It is true that we also move censure motions. If a censure motion is accepted by the government—and most frequently it is not—we move straight into it. However, when a censure motion is not accepted by the government, we move a suspension of standing orders, which outlines the reasons for the censure, and then argue why a censure motion should be permitted. Again, on party lines, a vote is taken and nothing ever comes of it. In my view, there is no parallel there with this issue. This issue was very different. It was a suspension and a condemnation in one motion. It was carried by the House. It left the member unable to defend himself procedurally; but, more importantly, it left him not knowing the specifics of where he had gone wrong.

I hope we will never see the need for a member to be condemned. However, should that need arise, we need to make sure that there is procedural fairness not only in knowing what the charge is but also in allowing that member to defend himself against that charge. That did not occur. As I say, Mr Deputy Speaker, with great respect to you and other members of the Speaker’s panel—the Speaker and the deputy speakers—you have a responsibility to protect all members in this place, in particular against the executive. That is your traditional role. It is not to favour one against the other but to ensure that the power that the executive wields in this parliament does not result in abuse of ordinary members of this place. I think the power of the executive has grown out of proportion; I think it is too great. I think they dominate the parliament too much. In saying that, it is not a criticism of you, Mr Deputy Speaker, or your peers. But we do need to make some changes.

Had this been allowed to stand, it would have become one of the unhappiest of precedents. I just say to the Leader of the House: these things have happened. However, I think the way in which the matter was allowed to be referred to the Procedure Committee was very appropriate. I think the Procedure Committee has done a good job in examining the evidence and, in a very carefully worded report, in bringing down recommendations to ensure that there will never be a repeat of this—if the government picks up the report’s recommendations and changes the standing orders in line with those recommendations.

Debate (on motion by Mr Neville) adjourned.

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