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

The member for Watson has at no time found any rule in any of the standing orders or House of Representatives Practice that would indicate that holding a fundraiser in the Speaker's dining room was in any way improper. That is why he should apologise.

The member for Watson keeps saying, 'I've apologised five times for a technical error.' He misses a vital point, and his colleagues should start thinking about whether he best represents them as Manager of Opposition Business or whether he might be better suited to another role in the parliament, perhaps on the front bench. This motion is not about him apologising for a technical breach, for making an inadvertent error; this motion is about requiring the Manager of Opposition Business to apologise for deliberately trying to cast an aspersion on the Speaker where that aspersion has been found to be based on a falsehood. A proper apology would be for the Manager of Opposition Business to stand up in the chamber and say: 'I was wrong to base my assertion on the false information that I had been provided. It is not improper for the Speaker to have acted in the way that she did, and it certainly is not unprecedented; and, if it suits the House, I apologise to the Speaker.' That would be an acceptable apology, to the government. He has an opportunity to do so now. He could do it at the end of my speech. He could stand up and make that apology to the government, to the House, but, most importantly, to the Speaker. In his defence to the suspension of standing orders—

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