Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

The tape of proceedings is available to all members. I say to the member for North Sydney, if we want to go down this track of rewriting everything that happened this morning so that some people can feel better about it than others, by all means do that. I think that, if you look carefully at what I have said, you will see I have admitted that I did not get advice from people that there was not a quorum. Remember that I come in here trailing the mace. I then stand, and it would be a bit hard for me to actually count all the faces that are smiling back at me. In fact, today, if you want to know what my other problem was, one member had his phone in his pocket and it beeped for a message, which distracted me if I wanted to claim I was distracted. But, if you want to listen to what has been said, I said that a lesson was learnt by the events of today. On the basis of the lesson learnt, I for one will ensure that any error will not be repeated. If you leave it at that, that should be sufficient. At the end of the day I could deflect it to other people. I accept that it was in my control because there is no opportunity for another member to indicate to me that there is not a quorum. Of course, there are other procedures and other ways that the Speaker can be advised of it, and I do not wish to put the blame on other people that work in the chamber.

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