Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I appreciate your comment and I appreciate that intervention that would normally be made by a member from the floor. I also appreciate that every reason I have given in the speech I have made, and I do not think I have been too subtle, was to explain why standing orders ought not be suspended. If you think this is a really dumb idea, you would vote against the motion. We think this is a really silly thing and a silly, childish game from the Leader of the House.

I reckon there are university councils and student representative councils around the country where they say, 'Let's suspend standing orders on something like this,' and people look and say, 'Oh, what a clever idea, Christopher.' I am sure that there are places where that would be the view. But let us take this all the way back to what is actually happening in the parliament right now. People are elected to represent their individual seats.

Those who form the majority are being told by the Leader of the House to vote to demand that a member of parliament make a particular statement. While I am willing and have been during this speech to say, 'If that detail was wrong, then I am sorry that that statement was made,' under no circumstances will I allow, and be part of a travesty of an Australian parliamentary system, a majority to be used to silence a member of parliament or, worse still, a majority to be used to tell a member of the Labor Party to jump to the call of a member of the Liberal Party. I will not do it. It should not happen in Australia and this motion should be voted down.

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