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

Madam Deputy Speaker, this is the most urgent matter before the House and that is why standing orders must be suspended, because the integrity of the parliament has been so damaged and traduced, and I am pointing out to the House why it is that this matter should take precedence over all other matters today until it is resolved. Michelle Grattan, writing in the Age, said:

When Peter Slipper's alleged behaviour has the community's hair standing on end, the PM cut to the core. 'Having Mr Slipper be Speaker has enabled the government to do some important things on behalf of Australian families,' she declared. In other words, Slipper has strengthened the government's numbers. Never mind the means. Think of the ends.

Michelle Grattan went on to say:

The government has entered a sort of no man's land. The atmosphere is reminiscent of those weeks in 1975, under the Whitlam government, when no-one was sure of what would happen.

This morass is entirely of this Prime Minister's making. There was absolutely no necessity for the Prime Minister to despatch Speaker Jenkins on 24 November last year and put the member for Fisher into the speakership except for one motivating reason: her desire to hang on to power at all costs. And we are paying the price. Now is the time for ALP members of good conscience—and they do exist—to search their consciences and realise that the best hope for the Labor Party's future is to turn their faces against the politics of sleaze and greed and power at all costs and to vote to restore—

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