Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a question for you, Mr Speaker. Yesterday when the lights went out in this building there was rather a lot of rancour and I noticed that your microphone was not working when other microphones seemed to be working. I am not suggesting you lost control at all, but I am suggesting that you were standing on your feet while members were still speaking and calling out across the room. Has there been a change of standing orders in that when the Speaker is on his feet you can still continue to debate across the room?

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

To allow this to be in order with my previous pronouncements on questions of administration, I will go to the administrative matters first. At about 1458 yesterday, Parliament House suffered a large voltage dip. This was caused by heavy lightning storm activity in the Canberra area which affected Telopea Park substation. The dip caused numerous equipment and lighting outages in the building, including the House of Representatives chamber lighting. During the outage, all emergency lighting in the chamber was functional and the chamber was able to continue operation with some minor disruptions. All lighting was restored within a 10-minute period. Recording and broadcasting of the chamber proceedings continued throughout the voltage dip with the exception of the Speaker’s microphone, which failed and had to be replaced. There was no impact on the Hansard record. I was unaware that I did not have a microphone. The question of emergency generators was raised. They do not kick in until an outage of at least one minute. The problem yesterday was that it was not an outage but a dip in power. If generators are required, it takes about a minute for them to synchronise and start working.

As to whether it is out of order to speak across the chamber—a question about procedure—I thank the member for McMillan, as a senior member of the chamber, for raising his concerns. In normal circumstances, of course, when I am on my feet I would expect that people quieten down and sit in silence. The circumstances were such that, if you look at the photos in the media, I appear to be the person that was well and truly in the dark. I was a little surprised that my regrettable increase in girth did not mean that people were able to see me. On the point that he makes, there has been no change. It is a tool of last resort used by occupants of the chair to try to gain control, and I would hope that, in other circumstances different from those of yesterday, members of the House would recognise that.