Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I congratulate you on your election to this office. You have held most positions in this parliament—in the other chamber and here. As a member of the Senate and a member of the House of Representatives you have been a minister and a shadow minister. You have been active in the parliamentary committee system. You have certainly played a major role in the parliament over quite a long period of time. You had five years on the House Standing Committee on Procedure, which would have been an excellent opportunity for you to get the experience you need to grasp how the standing orders work and, no doubt, would have given you some ideas also about how you might like this parliament to work better in the future.

In many ways, in spite of all the things that you have done as a parliamentarian—and you have been well recognised and acknowledged around the country for those achievements—I think you have, in some ways, always been destined to be Speaker; it has certainly been one of your loves. I think it would be a very, very brave member of the parliament who would come to the dispatch box with the House of Representatives Practice under their arm and challenge your rulings; you know every page and, seemingly, every paragraph. I am sure that you will exercise your experience to the benefit of the House.

The last parliament was a challenging time for the Speaker. The fact that there were three Speakers obviously did not help. It was a parliament that I think many of us would like to put behind us. The public expect our parliament to behave better in the future. They want a parliament that is orderly and businesslike. I believe that you have the skills, talent and ability to lead the parliament to aspire to achieve reform and to make sure that the business of the parliament is conducted in an orderly and businesslike manner in the future. It is, of course, up to us as members of parliament to support you in that role so that we can have a parliament that the people of Australia will respect for the 44th class. Congratulations on your election and my very best wishes to you in that role.

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