Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, Madam Speaker, I congratulate you on your appointment to such a high office and I congratulate those who were appointed last night, including the member for Maranoa. You are both members of this House deserving of such important roles. Having said that, we are talking about the conventions of the House—the standing orders and the spirit. If I believe the member for Scullin, and in full knowledge that the opposition leader in the House has the ability to get into places of mischief and intentional mischief, I think with the spirit of this and the intention of the House we have come to a point now where we find that the standing orders are very important because they affect the day-to-day operations of the House and who holds what positions.

So it is a matter of having regard for the conventions of the House and the spirit of what we are doing—and any argy-bargy or rebuttal that may be put in place—making the point that when we are discussing standing orders and the changes to standing orders, and they are controlled by hug-ins and love-ins rather than consideration of the proper processes of the House, we are going to come to appointments like this that fail to deliver what the government of the day or even the opposition of the day may have intended.

I believe the government will have its way in a few moments, after we take this vote, because the vote will go that way. Whilst the mischief is there—and there is some smile in the mischief that we make today—as the Manager of Opposition Business said, this is not the most important issue of the day that this parliament should be discussing, and therefore it is time for me to sit down and get on with the vote.

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