Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I am, Madam Deputy Speaker. The reason I am pointing these matters out is because it is very important for the public to know why the opposition believes that the standing of parliament is now so low that we want to see the clock restarted back to 24 November last year when this whole sorry period began. More recently the Prime Minister's choice to replace Speaker Jenkins—that is, the member for Fisher—has been required to stand down as Speaker while allegations of fraud against the Commonwealth are investigated by the AFP and civil claims of sexual harassment involving him are tested in the Federal Court.

What the parliament needs right now is a Speaker who has demonstrated fairness, honour and the respect for the House before. That man is sitting in the House right now. Without reflecting on you at all, Madam Deputy Speaker—as the member for Chisholm and the Deputy Speaker you have been thrust into this unhappy mess, this unedifying circus, through no fault of your own—that man is the member for Scullin. This motion reflects the orthodox reading of the Australian Constitution and our responsibilities as members of parliament.

While the standing orders allow for the Deputy Speaker to take the chair if asked to do so by the Speaker or in the absence of the Speaker, they also provide for the Deputy Speaker to be Acting Speaker and that is not the case in the arrangement is being contemplated here. The arrangement contemplated here is that the member for Fisher remains Speaker, continuing to hold the office with its salary and emoluments for an indeterminate period, while the Deputy Speaker is not officially the Acting Speaker but is simply filling in for an indeterminate absence. This is not good enough for the opposition and it should not be good enough or satisfactory for the government or the crossbench members of the House. This arrangement does nothing to repair the standing of the House of Representatives or all of us as members of it. Section 36 of the Constitution requires the House to choose a member to perform the Speaker's duties should he be absent. The motion I am moving today fulfils our responsibilities and demonstrates to the Australian people that we here are taking the necessary first steps to restore the integrity and standing of the parliament. All members should want to support it. No-one in the House could be deaf to the feelings of revulsion and horror in our electorates over the current low standing of this parliament. The cause of this low standing has been the single-minded determination of this Prime Minister to gain and hold power at any cost, which reached its nadir with the despatching of Speaker Jenkins and the suborning of a coalition MP, the member for Fisher, to be Speaker. Do not take just my word for it, Madam Deputy Speaker; the former longstanding Clerk of the Senate, Mr Harry Evans, wrote in the Financial Review:

The Slipper affair, consisting of his elevation to the speakership of the House of Representatives as a manoeuvre to improve the government's numbers, followed by his standing aside under the cloud of serious allegations of illegality and impropriety, is rightly regarded as a low point in partisan politics.

Then we have this statement:

When I resigned the party's leadership in 2005, I was convinced its core values—

those of the Labor Party—

were being corroded by the growth of factionalism and union control.

…   …   …

Unhappily, my 2005 prophecy has been fulfilled. The erosion of Labor's moral core now has a public face: its association with Thomson and Slipper. I cannot imagine anything more gut-wrenching for the party faithful, the salt-of-the-earth types who grew up with the legends of working class decency under Ben Chifley and John Curtin.

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