Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to report that the Deputy Speaker has informed me that last Thursday 27 February the Federation Chamber was adjourned early because of continuing disorder. I understand that, following closure motions moved by members from both the government and the opposition and consequent unresolved questions, the Federation Chamber was suspended. The chair warned members of the consequences if the disorder continued after the suspension. When the meeting was resumed, another closure was moved and the chair adjourned the chamber pursuant to standing orders.

I confirm that, in my view and in the Deputy Speaker's view, these repeated motions were an abuse of forms of the House and were disorderly. On Thursday members deprived themselves of opportunities to make constituency statements to speak on the disaster risk reduction report and on the adjournment debate. When this has happened before, as I've said previously, this reflects poorly on the House. The Federation Chamber is a very innovative thing, but it does rely on the consent of all members if it's going to operate effectively.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

on indulgence—This is not the first time that you've give a report of that nature. I think it's important to advise the House that the fact that the conduct continued was not a rejection of the reports that you've given. There is a very specific context that has led to those motions being moved in the Federation Chamber, and it goes to what happens in this chamber.

It has become the practice in a way that it never used to be—in particular, the Leader of the Opposition, when moving suspension motions, is not allowed to deliver a speech anymore. That the member be no further heard is moved immediately. Certainly when I first arrived—and as I saw under the Howard government, the Rudd and Gillard governments, the Turnbull government and the Abbott government—the question is whether or not leave is granted. If leave is not granted, then ordinarily the suspension debate takes place. If it is felt that the opposition have moved it out of the blue or that they've been moving them too often, occasionally that the member be no longer heard would be moved. Instead now it's just become how this place operates. In those circumstances, the opposition has no way of pushing back other than to move resolutions of that form.

I don't want to delay the House any further but, given the seriousness of the report—and it's not the first time that you as the Speaker have reported that—it should be made absolutely clear that if the House returns to its ordinary procedures and way of operating, then we will not see that again in the Federation Chamber. But if we continue, this term, to have a situation which has no parallel in this chamber, then the sorts of reports that have been given just now by the Speaker will refer to events that will occur again.