Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Griffith from moving the following motion immediately:

That the House:

(1) notes that:

  (a) the member for Bowman is accused of stalking and abusing his own constituents online and taking an inappropriate photo of a woman at work, and he continues to defend these actions;

  (b) the member for Bowman stated on 27 March that he would step down from all parliamentary roles, effective immediately, but has failed to relinquish his chairmanship of the Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training;

  (c) last sitting week, coalition members voted six times to keep the member for Bowman as chair of the committee, including the coalition members of that committee—the members for Moncrieff, Groom, Curtin, New England and Longman; and

  (d) by voting to keep the member for Bowman as chair of this committee, the Prime Minister and everyone who sits behind him in this House is endorsing the member for Bowman's behaviour;

(2) and therefore calls on the Prime Minister to discharge the member for Bowman from the Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training immediately.

The Prime Minister's failure to act on this matter is really incomprehensible. It is very clear that the member for Bowman, having said that he would relinquish all of his positions and step down from all of his parliamentary positions, was rightly expected by the Australian people to make good on that commitment. And yet we found last sitting week that he was still the chair of this standing committee. It's an important position and a responsible position. I think most of us were quite surprised to hear that he had not stepped away from that position.

Accordingly, once we had learned of that, we invited the member for Bowman and the Prime Minister to take action during the last sitting week. That did not occur, and it is a fact that, today, the member for Bowman remains the chair of that standing committee. It's surprising to all of us—

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