Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I want to make it perfectly clear, with due deference to my colleague, that the Greens are not speaking for Katter's Australian Party. Madam Speaker, we congratulate you on your appointment to the position. Having dealt with you on many occasions I expect to be thrown out grossly more times than in the past. You are not a person given to equivocation, so we look forward to very fiery and interesting debates in the next three years.

I would have liked some of the ALP people to have had a chance in the Speaker's chair but apparently they will get the No. 3 spot. You will have to settle for that, fellas! I say, in all sincerity—I have spent 40 years in parliament—that Speaker Jenkins was very fair. I can remember—I will be game to put this on record—that my great leader, a man I had immense admiration for, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, when instructing a new Speaker said: 'None of this fairness! It is not about being fair in this place.' I think we can go forward from there. Much as I loved and greatly revered my Premier, I do not think that that is where we want to be going in this parliament.

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