Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Tuesday, 24 February 2009, the member for Sturt raised, as a matter of privilege, an alleged interference with members performing their duties as members due to certain arrangements put in place by the government for the participation of members in school infrastructure programs. The member tabled a range of documentation, which I have examined carefully. As I noted in my earlier written response to the member for Sturt, an act or omission which obstructs or impedes members in the discharge of their duties as members can be regarded as contempt. It has been recognised that, as well as participating in proceedings in parliament, members’ duties extend to electorate responsibilities, although the range of these duties to which parliamentary privilege would apply have not been fully defined.

It is a moot point as to whether a necessary involvement in government sponsored programs and activities in their electorates is within members’ responsibilities for the purposes of the protection against improper interference. I refer to a similar matter that was raised in the 41st Parliament by the member for Swan. The member raised the issue of an invitation he had received to a launch of the then government’s Green Corps program in his electorate which was subsequently withdrawn. The then Speaker noted that:

The attendance of members at the launch of Green Corps programs in their electorates does not seem to be an essential part of members’ duties and hence attendance is by invitation, just as members may or may not be invited to other events within their electorates.

I find that this sentiment is relevant in the present case.

There are two matters of detail raised by the member for Sturt. The first concerns a letter sent by the Deputy Prime Minister to members, on 5 February 2009, inviting them to register as a participating member of parliament in the Building the Education Revolution program. Members were invited to complete a registration form to be informed about and involved in a range of programs’ activities. Setting aside the issue of whether the involvement of members in this program is an essential part of their duties, members were being invited freely to register to be involved in the program just as they can freely choose to involve themselves or not in any activities in their electorates. I am not persuaded that this constitutes an interference with members performing their duties.

The second matter concerns issues raised by the member for Hinkler in a letter to the member for Sturt relating to the Investing in Our Schools Program and the recognition arrangements for the opening ceremonies of projects funded under that program and other programs. The member for Hinkler suggests that his role as a member has been diminished by not being directly involved in the ceremonial arrangements for the events. As a general comment: these programs are government programs and the administrative arrangements for them, including the ceremonial arrangements and responsibilities for representing the government, are matters for the government at the time. Unless these arrangements are shown to interfere improperly in members performing their general responsibilities in their electorates or having the effect of interfering with members, I do not see them as raising any matters of privilege.

Specifically in relation to the Investing in Our Schools Program, I note that the detailed guidelines for recognition under the program state who will be the representative of the government at the opening ceremony of the projects. I also note that the guidelines provide for alternative arrangements if a government representative is unable to attend the opening ceremonies. Finally, the guidelines state that schools are welcome to invite any member of parliament—federal or state—as a guest to an opening ceremony and that those invited guests may speak at the ceremony if invited to do so but they may not officiate at the ceremony. Again, I do not see how these arrangements amount to an interference with members being able to perform their duties as members.

For these reasons—while I acknowledge the importance of these matters to all members—I iterate the conclusion in my letter to the member for Sturt that I have not seen evidence sufficient to support a view that a prima facie case of contempt has been made out by the member in relation to the matters he has raised. Consequently, I would not give precedence to a motion to refer the matter to the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests. I present a copy of all the documentation I have referred to in my statement.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for the statement to the House on the privileges matter. As you would imagine, it does not satisfy the opposition’s desires with respect to what we regard as a very serious breach of privilege; therefore—by leave—I move:

That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Sturt from moving immediately:That the following matter be referred to the Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests: Whether the actions of the Deputy Prime Minister, by:

(1)

issuing Members of Parliament with a form requiring that they indicate whether they wish to be informed of, or participate in, launches and ceremonies at new buildings and redevelopment of their local schools, with the intention being that only through registration will Members be allowed to participate;

(2)

changing the guidelines for the launches and ceremonies associated with the former government’s Investing in Our Schools Program:

(a)

to prevent schools from inviting their local Members of Parliament; and

(b)

so that they now require the officiating individual at any such launch or ceremony to be a member of the Australian Labor Party; and

(3)

instructing schools to disinvite their local Members of Parliament from attending programs and announcements at those schools, where the local Member of Parliament is a member of the Coalition,

We understand the limitations with respect to what can be done with a government that is drunk with power and incapable of allowing free democratic processes to take their course. We in the coalition are deeply concerned about the infringement of our rights as members of parliament with respect to launches, ceremonies and opening events at schools in relation to the Investing in Our Schools Program. The key point to make today is that the coalition’s guidelines, from when we were in government before 2007, have been demonstrably changed by the current government to be much more strict and much less capable of allowing members of parliament to perform their duties. Let me explain why that is the case.

When we were in government the Investing in Our Schools guidelines for 2007 required that a minister be invited to all opening ceremonies. It also required that a representative of the government be given the opportunity to open those events. In practice, that meant that often a coalition government senator would get the opportunity to open a school event. Most senators usually did not get the opportunity to open school events in electorates, whether they were Labor electorates or coalition electorates. We left open the fact that schools would organise those events, but they would work with the department to organise those events. We never at any point suggested that schools not invite their local members of parliament. I am not aware of any occasion when we were in government when a Labor member of parliament who had been invited to open a school events was then ‘disinvited’. Mr Speaker, that has happened to the member for Hinkler, who is in the House and who has written to me, and that is the basis of the reference to the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests that we asked you to rule on. The shadow minister for education and I were bizarrely disinvited from opening an Investing in Our Schools Program event just last year at the Paradise Primary School in my electorate of Sturt.

I reiterate that the coalition government’s guidelines have been demonstrably altered. The Deputy Prime Minister keeps repeating that they have not been changed one iota. Let me give two very clear examples where they have been changed. The House will be most interested to hear this. The new guidelines for the Investing in Our Schools Program, right at the beginning, referring to inviting the Minister for Education to an opening ceremony, say: ‘Schools should not invite the minister or their local member directly. The department coordinates all opening ceremony requests between the minister’s office and the school.’ So the invitation goes to the Labor Minister for Education’s office, and they will apparently invite the local members of parliament in coalition seats. Previously, the schools were quite entitled to invite the local members of parliament. In fact, that was the practice.

Principals or governing councils reading these guidelines could be forgiven for not inviting their local members of parliament to school openings that are federally funded. In our view, nothing could be more clearly a breach of the privileges of members of parliament. This amounts to a prima facie case of privilege and we believe it should be referred to the Privileges and Members’ Interests Committee. It is a direct change from the period of the coalition government, and we know that it is affecting members of parliament in their capacity to do their job. The member for Hinkler and I have been disinvited from events. The member for Ryan, in Queensland, has sent me an email in which he specifically indicates that the guidelines have been changed and that he has been stopped from doing his job as the member for Ryan.

There is a second demonstrably different aspect of the Rudd government guidelines—or the Gillard government guidelines—for Investing in Our Schools and that is the second paragraph. It states: ‘The minister generally appoints an Australian government representative to officiate at the ceremony. In 2008 an Australian government representative is a member of the Australian Labor Party.’ The Deputy Prime Minister would say that the Australian Labor Party is in government, so naturally that is the case. But, in the coalition government, we did not have any requirement in our guidelines for Investing in Our Schools that a member of the Liberal Party of Australia or the National Party of Australia be the representative of the government. None at all. You can check the 2007 guidelines and you will find nothing in appendix 4, ‘Recognition requirements’, which says that the person who officiates at the ceremony should be a member of the Liberal Party or the National Party. It is nowhere in those guidelines.

But that is what you will find in the 2008 guidelines. They actually state: ‘In 2008 an Australian government representative is a member of the Australian Labor Party.’ Now, the Deputy Prime Minister might be slightly obtuse about this point. Perhaps she does not realise that, when members of the Public Service are chosen to represent the government and are sent along to open the events or the programs or whatever the change is under Investing in Our Schools, according to the guidelines—and this has happened more often than not—they must also be members of the Australian Labor Party. There is a serious question—and this is another matter for debate—about whether that is in breach of the Public Service Act because it politicises the Public Service.

When I sat in the back row at Paradise Primary School last year—because I had been disinvited from opening the program at Paradise Primary School—I asked whether the public servant who had been sent along was a member of the Australian Labor Party. I can only assume that he was and that when they passed the invitations around at the department of education in Adelaide to go along to Paradise Primary School to do Christopher Pyne’s job for him they asked, ‘Which of you are members of the Australian Labor Party?’ I assume this fellow put up his hand and he was sent along. We are seeing the government politicising the Public Service and finding out who in the Public Service is a member of the Australian Labor Party and who is not. If you want to open an Investing in Our Schools Program event, you must sign up to the Australian Labor Party or you cannot do it.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Sustainable Development and Cities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No ticket, no start.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the member for Dunkley says: no ticket, no start. We are seeing the blatant politicisation of the Australian Public Service. I believe it is in breach of the Public Service Act. That is probably not a matter for debate today under this matter to do with the privileges committee, but it is a matter for another day as to whether the Deputy Prime Minister is in breach of the Public Service Act. So there are two demonstrable changes between the Investing in Our Schools Program of 2007 and the Investing in Our Schools Program of 2008.

Mr Speaker, I heard what you said in your report to the House on privileges but I must say that on this occasion we disagree with you. We very rarely disagree with you but we do on this occasion. We believe that this does warrant a referral to the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests. We believe that the inalienable right of members of parliament for 108 years has been to attend events such as openings at schools in their electorates when there are federal funds involved. I have been a member of this House for 16 years and I have attended hundreds of school events and programs. No-one had ever suggested that I could not be there to open a federally funded event in my own electorate until the government changed in 2007.

The Deputy Prime Minister puts on her smug, snarly smile, which she has perfected in this House, as though we do not know what we are talking about. There were Labor state governments for most of the time the Howard government was in power. This is exactly the process that they undertook for state project openings and events, and we used to complain about it even then. Federal members would turn up and find state Labor people or public servants opening events in our electorates when members of parliament should have been doing it.

The member for Hinkler wrote to me—a letter that you have, Mr Speaker—giving us a good example in his electorate where funding of $123,000 was being used at the Coalstoun Lakes State School west of Bundaberg. They were spending the money on tubular steel playground equipment, a T-shaped shed, reverse cycle air-conditioning and a storage and assembly area. He had been involved in securing those funds for the Coalstoun Lakes State School. When the member for Hinkler turned up to the opening, the principal shamefacedly informed him—he was embarrassed, I am sure, because I am sure he knows the member for Hinkler well after all the member’s years of service; Mr Neville is also a class of ’93 member—that he could not do the opening; that he would have to let somebody else do it. The principal ended up doing it because he had been instructed by the government not to allow the member for Hinkler to do his job as a member of parliament. But it is an inalienable right of this parliament.

I have another very recent example, from the member for Ryan, of the opening, at the Middle Park State School, of an Investing in Our Schools Program project. He was sent an email from the Branch Manager of Infrastructure, Funding and Coordination in the National Education System group in the Deputy Prime Minister’s Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. In that email, she confirmed that the member would not be able to open the event at the Middle Park State School in Ryan because, according to the 2008 guidelines, ‘An Australian government representative is a member of the Labor Party.’

We are seeing a classic example where the member for Ryan has been denied the opportunity to fulfil his tasks as a member of parliament. In 2009 the Labor Party say, ‘If you are not Labor, you are not really a fully fledged member of the parliament.’ We know that they basically do not have any great attachment to the democratic traditions of the Westminster system. That was on full display yesterday in the pathetic attempts by the member for Hunter to defend his incompetence as the Minister for Defence. We know that they have only a cursory attachment to the democratic principles that have underpinned this parliament for the last 108 years. And this cannot be allowed to stand. Members on this side of the House will not stand by and see their right to serve their electorates infringed upon. Their electorates expect it—the schools, the governing councils, the parents and friends, the local community groups, the Scout groups and all the others. Where will this stop, when members of parliament are not able to do their jobs as local members? We cannot allow our own constituencies to be let down. We cannot give way to unelected public servants who are members of the Australian Labor Party, which is apparently the only qualification that is required to do an opening—

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Sustainable Development and Cities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A recruitment drive.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a recruitment drive, as the member for Dunkley says. We cannot allow those people to fulfil the tasks that we were elected to do and that our constituents expect us to do. We feel very strongly about this motion. It will be strongly supported on this side of the House. We have not even touched on the extraordinary Building the Education Revolution guidelines because that is not a matter for debate today. It will become a matter for debate in the future. We will not let this matter rest. We will return to it again and again.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! During the member for Sturt’s speech he indicated that he wished to table a document. He requires leave to table a document. Is leave granted?

Leave not granted.

Is the motion seconded?

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know that the member for Sturt is trying hard in his new position as Manager of Opposition Business but I think he has missed his true calling, which would be as a teller of Australian fiction, because the story he has just put to the House is exactly that—a story. There are no facts behind it and the only thing that is fuelling it is the hypocrisy of the Liberal Party when it comes to this matter.

Let us calmly go through the facts, not the hysterical rantings that we have heard so far. Fact No. 1: the Howard government had a program called Investing in Our Schools. The then Prime Minister, John Howard, brought that program to an end by way of a press release. The then minister for education, Julie Bishop, in and around the time of the 2007 election, said that the Howard government, if re-elected, would remain committed to an Investing in Our Schools Program. But when the Liberal Party submitted their Charter of Budget Honesty figures, they did not put any money next to the program. So a frequent misrepresentation from the Liberal Party is that, if they had been in government, Investing in Our Schools would have continued—not true.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rubbish!

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yelling abuse does not change the facts, member for Sturt.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Pyne interjecting

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did not interrupt you. As a man who has just been carrying on about the Westminster tradition, you should know that allowing someone to have their say is a part of that. All of this is going to hurt the member for Sturt because it punctures the story he has been telling over the last few days. Fact No. 2: the Investing in Our Schools Program always came with guidelines. Those guidelines had a few iterations but they always provided that it was the Australian government that would be contacted for arrangements in relation to the opening ceremony. To directly quote:

If an opening ceremony is required schools are advised that they must:

These are the words of the Liberal Party, the Howard government—

i. before organising an official opening, contact the IOSP Liaison Officer in the Parliament House Office of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training … to arrange the Australian Government’s participation;

ii. provide the Minister with at least two months prior notice of any openings and public events relating to the projects;

               …            …            …

iii. make provision in the official proceedings for the Minister or their representative to speak.

The arrangements of the Liberal government were as follows: contact a public servant stationed in the office of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training, who was then Mr Farmer; Mr Farmer, with that public servant, would arrange an Australian government representative; and there needed to be notice requirements to the minister. We are using these guidelines. We are using them in relation to Investing in Our Schools projects. Nothing has changed in relation to that—nothing. The guidelines are the same. Any representation to the contrary is untrue, made up, fanciful and perhaps deceitful.

I will take the House to the memo that the member for Sturt has referred to, a memo put out by this government, because the purpose of that memo is a very interesting one. When I was elected as minister, because of the rigorous requirements of the Liberal Party that their members get political credit for the Investing in Our Schools Program and that there be a ceremony in relation to each Investing in Our Schools Program grant, we were faced with a circumstance where there were 22,000 opening ceremonies that needed to occur. The Liberal Party had organised an orgy of self-congratulation around the country.

I came to the conclusion—and that is why this memo went out—that maybe we would like schools to teach children rather than spend their days rolling out 22,000 ceremonies for the Liberal Party’s orgy of self-congratulation. So I issued this memo—it was put out by the department, but obviously I take responsibility for it. This memo went out to put into place the new advice to schools that, for a series of minor Investing in Our Schools Program grants, they did not have to have an opening ceremony and they could consolidate opening ceremonies. To cut down on the number of opening ceremonies, instead of having one for each individual grant, they could have just one for the whole suite of projects that had gone into the school. I stand behind that. That was the right thing to do.

What else happened when this memo went out? We do not have the situation where departmental officers sit in my office the way they used to sit in Mr Farmer’s office organising these opening ceremonies. We thought it was appropriate that those functions be organised by the department. So the other reason for putting out this memo is to say: ‘In the past you have rung into a Liberal Party politician’s office in relation to your Investing in Our Schools Program ceremonies. We don’t want you to do that. We want you to deal with the department.’ Obviously schools deal with the department very frequently. That is why the guideline was here to ask schools to deal with the department.

All of these guidelines are about who officiates at the opening ceremony, who represents the Australian government. The member for Sturt has tried to pretend that somehow when the Liberal Party were in office it was common for them, out of the goodness of their heart, to allow a member of the opposition to be that government representative. That is completely and utterly untrue. The member for Adelaide was telling me the other day about a ceremony in her electorate which was officiated by a state Liberal member of parliament whose electorate was not even in that area. I have been told by the member for Shortland that she was invited to a ceremony and the then Liberal government caused it to be cancelled. I have been told by the member for Chifley about a ceremony officiated at not by a state Liberal member but by a state Liberal member’s staffer—a political staffer. The Liberal Party would have dragged anybody out of any corner of the planet that suited their political interests rather than let a Labor member officiate at one of these ceremonies. So let us not hear this hypocrisy and cant from the member for Sturt.

Mr Speaker, if the member for Sturt had indeed listened to your ruling, he would have heard that what first brought these matters to the attention of this parliament was a complaint from the then Labor member for Swan that he had been excluded from a Green Corps announcement in his electorate under a similar sort of process. That complaint was made to the then Liberal Party member who was Speaker at the time—and I do not mean to impugn him in any way, but obviously it is a matter of fact that he was a Liberal Party member when the Howard government was in office. So let us not listen to any of the cant that we have heard from the member for Sturt. It is hypocrisy writ large in capital letters.

The member for Sturt has deliberately and craftily tried to confuse the difference between officiating at a ceremony as a representative of the Australian government and attending a ceremony. It is a question of who speaks on behalf of the Australian government as opposed to who is in attendance. The member for Sturt, the member for Gilmore and others have been saying we are somehow stopping people from going to the schools. Ridiculous! If you go to the departmental website and look at the frequently asked questions about Investing in Our Schools ceremonies, you will see the question, ‘Whom else can I invite to an opening ceremony?’ It says:

Schools are welcome to invite any member of parliament, federal or state, as a guest to an opening ceremony to acknowledge Australian Government funding and the achievements of the school with the local community.

So the guidelines are about who officiates—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The guidelines say they must not.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did not interrupt you, Member for Sturt—a man who says he cares about democracy and clearly does not. The guidelines are about who speaks at a ceremony—who officiates on behalf of the Australian government—not who can attend.

The member for Sturt has raised the question of who can attend ceremonies at schools. I want the member for Sturt and every Liberal member in this House to understand this. Schools will be able to invite Liberal Party members to Investing in Our Schools launches and they will be able to invite Liberal Party members to Building the Education Revolution launches. Do you know what? I hope they do. I hope they invite every Liberal member of parliament. When a school is opening a new building that this government has funded, I hope every parent and every teacher stands in a queue and asks the Liberal Party member there why they oppose them having that facility. That is what I hope happens. I hope you are all continually there, day after day, being asked why you voted against the schools in your electorates getting those benefits.

I conclude by saying this: under the Howard government, we used to have the phenomenon of members being lions in their electorates but lambs when they came to Canberra. They would stalk around their electorate saying, ‘I don’t believe in selling Telstra.’ That was always a classic. Then they would come here to the Liberal party room and say: ‘Eek, eek, eek! John Howard wants me to sell Telstra.’ But now, of course, we are seeing the reverse: they are lions here in the parliament. They shout abuse about Building the Education Revolution. They vote against it. Their most senior spokespeople describe it as ‘ridiculous’, ‘poor quality spending’ and so on. They are lions here, but in their electorates they are lambs trying to work out how they can get themselves in the photo when a building is opened. Political decisions have political consequences, and you made one by voting against the Building the Education Revolution program. I hope every member of the Liberal Party is at every opening explaining that.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I open by saying that the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement is false. It is not about what Chris Pyne said; it is the unmitigated truth. It happened to me personally. Fancy going to a country school that has had the most basic of facilities installed and having the principal say to you: ‘Paul, I’m terribly upset about this, but you can’t open it, mate. I’m sorry, you’re not allowed to unveil the plaque.’ Or worse still: ‘You may speak briefly.’ And within a couple of weeks the same thing happened again.

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about the Westminster system, which allows everyone to be heard in silence? After that occasion, it happened again twice. My state member called me up and said, ‘You weren’t at the opening of such-and-such the other day.’ I said, ‘I wasn’t invited.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know you weren’t. I went to the management of this particular Job Network and they said they were instructed not to invite you.’ As recently as last Sunday, outside church, one of the Green Corps committee came up to me and said: ‘Paul, we’ve been told not to invite you next Thursday, but please come along. You will be acknowledged and honoured.’ That is disgraceful. The tit-for-tatting that colleagues on both sides are going on with demeans us as members of parliament. However, this does not happen in all portfolios. I must say out of fairness that I have been treated with great courtesy by Minister Albanese and Parliamentary Secretary Gray.

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those on my right should contain themselves.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, with two speakers having been heard in relative silence, and with me being the subject of the motion, I find it quite unfair that I do not have the right to put my case.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hinkler has the call.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was saying that we are demeaning ourselves as politicians. I also said that Minister Albanese and Parliamentary Secretary Gray have treated me with inordinate courtesy at all times and have had me at openings. I acknowledge that publicly. What a pity it is that that bipartisanship and decency does not extend to all portfolios. For those on both sides who think it is smart to do those sorts of things, and who have done so in the past, all it does is diminish us as politicians. When I went out to that little school we talked about, the topic of conversation after the opening—and it was opened by the principal, for heaven’s sake!—was: ‘What a dreadful thing they did to our local member.’ So anyone who thought that they were silencing me or getting some political advantage did the exact opposite.

Let me put this on the record: any minister, parliamentary secretary or officer of the parliament who comes to my electorate will be treated with great courtesy. I will acknowledge them, I will move votes of thanks and I will do whatever is required of me when they are there. In fact, I will meet them at the airport and, if they are short of a feed before they go back, I will take them to lunch. I acknowledge that we should never underestimate the value of having a minister or parliamentary secretary, from whichever side is in power, visit our electorates. So I give a guarantee: if any minister, parliamentary secretary or officer of the parliament comes to my electorate, they will be treated with great courtesy. But let me warn you: if anyone demeans the office of this parliament by ignoring me or by sending some minor official or by having a principal or some apparatchik open a building, I will make it totally uncomfortable for them and I will make a political issue of it.

Let me also say this: I think it would be a good idea if, perhaps through the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests, we sat down in a bipartisan way and wrote guidelines on this for the future. I acknowledge that it has happened on both sides of the parliament, but I find this appalling. I do not play the sort of games in my electorate that we have talked about in this parliament this morning, and I have pledged to act properly and in keeping with the high standards of this House. Every time we do one of these dodgy deals, we diminish ourselves as a parliament and we do an insult to the people of this country.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I agree with the final comments that the member for Hinkler made. I do think we demean this place when these games are played. But there is a great deal of hypocrisy in the current motion before the House. If anybody was a victim under the previous government of the very things that the member for Sturt is talking about, it was me—and there were many others. I find it extraordinary to use the example of Investing in Our Schools, because it was a great and very fair program that the school system responded to well. The only problem that ever occurred with that particular program, in my view, was when it was used for political advantage at these ridiculous openings, when orders and instructions were given that various members of the parliament were not to be invited or encouraged to attend.

This is embarrassing, as the member for Hinkler said, to the schools. It does reflect badly on the process. In fact, when these things are politicised, what happens is that the reaction in the community is the opposite of what was intended. I would encourage the minister, and other ministers, to view this as a stupid practice. It backfires every time that it is carried out. I remember one occasion when it was particularly embarrassing to a school in my electorate. The previous government had been invited to officiate, and no-one would attend. So the principal wrote to me as the local member and asked if I would officiate. I said that I was more than happy to. When the government heard that I was going to do the opening, Mr Farmer suddenly appeared on the scene. I am not suggesting that Mr Farmer was sitting there with some sort of insidious program—I think he was being ordered by others on what he should be doing in certain seats—but it was terribly embarrassing for that school community.

The member for Hinkler is right: this place ought to sit down together on this. It is not the government’s money; it is the public’s money. In various electorates the people elect people of different persuasions, and they should be able to attend the various functions that occur. The opposition have come in here very high-handedly on this particular issue, but when they were in government they perpetrated this against me. I remember when the then Minister for Transport and Regional Services and Deputy Prime Minister in the former government said to the people at a meeting concerning aircraft in my electorate that if I attended the meeting he would not say anything. He said that if the member representing the community on a federal issue that reflected on that community attended a meeting with the minister responsible for that issue, he would not say anything. Numerous examples of that activity occurred under the previous regime.

Does everybody remember the flagpole issue? I think that, every time one of these missives went out in my electorate, my vote went up. These absurd directives, with the minister of the day ordering a community into certain protocols for a political advantage—thinking that that would advantage the party concerned—are just a nonsense. The member for Hinkler is quite right: a reverse reaction occurs. I would encourage anybody who is thinking of playing the blame game: please do it in my electorate, because it is very good for votes. People are not dumb. They see the cynicism of political manipulation of programs, particularly the Investing in Our Schools Program. It did not need to be ‘glossified’ politically, because it was a good program in its own right, and people respected that. When it was politicised, people started to disrespect the people who were pushing the politicisation. So the reverse occurs in terms of what these politicised processes are intended to do.

I think the member for Sturt is recognising a few points that really do need to be fleshed out, because there are some missives and directives out there in the community that might be encouraging. If there is a grey area then kill it, because it is not worth having. It achieves nothing. In fact, when people of various political persuasions do attend these functions, the community respect the policy and the program far more than when there is some sort of politicised process or when someone whom no-one knows travels in from outside the electorate to read a speech from the minister and then flies out again.

Question put:

That the motion (Mr Pyne’s) be agreed to.