Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

As I said, I'm not going to debate the matter. It was my decision to grant the Manager of Opposition Business indulgence. I'm going to make a couple of remarks—and the House ought to be capable of listening to them, and those members who want to listen to them should be able to do so without a wall of interjections. I'll make a couple of points. Firstly, the Manager of Opposition Business made a point about the date of the first letter being received. Let me assure members of the House, without going into the details of what are private consultations, that I did not simply sit there as Speaker and wait for a letter to arrive. You have oral consultations and written advice, which I had requested; it's made clear in the correspondence at the start. With respect to the timing of the calling of the other by-elections, without going over all the issues again, I just reiterate that the special circumstances relate to section 44 and the regulation and to school holidays. I simply make that point.

On the inference that this is unprecedented—I think you said 79 days—I'm happy to stand corrected but I do spend a lot of time considering these issues and I'm going to make a point. I think you'll find that the Gippsland by-election in 2008—I carry a lot of these figures around in my head and I'm pretty sure they're right—took 80 day. and I think it took about 40 days to issue the writs. If there were any extenuating circumstances, I wasn't aware of them at the time. Both the Manager of Opposition Business and the Leader of the Opposition were in the House at the time, so if they can think of any—I would just make that point. And that was a single electoral event, not five events caused across four states. So I'd just like to make those points. The letters have been tabled. The Electoral Commissioner has provided those two pieces of very detailed correspondence outlining the reasons. I wanted to outline those to the House. I thought that was the right thing to do, notwithstanding I knew that a few members would find it impossible not to interject while I did it. I could have very easily issued a press release on the matter. I could have very easily done that; that's what other Speakers have done. For those who have listened in silence, I thank you, because I owe it at least to all of you to explain the reasons. I thank the House.

Honourable members: Hear hear.

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