Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That this House has confidence in the Member for Scullin’s Speakership.

I thank members opposite for the opportunity to move this motion. I may not detain the House for quite as long as the time I have on the clock. Obviously, we have been in uncharted and difficult parliamentary waters ever since the parliament resumed after the last election. Obviously, in the circumstances where the government cannot naturally command a majority, the job of the speakership is even more difficult than usual. Under difficult circumstances, Mr Speaker, you have done your job with commendable impartiality and with considerable forbearance. I know that all members of this House from time to time try your patience; I know from time to time I do and I suspect from time to time the Prime Minister does. All of us in this House are trying to make political points, as we should, given that the job of this House is to determine the great questions before our nation. I do not think anyone on this side of the House has anything other than respect for the job you do under difficult circumstances, and the last thing any of us would want to see is you feeling that you have been compromised in your ability to discharge your office by the vote that has just been taken. Whatever we on this side of the House think of a particular decision that you might have just made, we do have deep and abiding confidence in your ability to run this House.

I want to put it on the record that it is not the opinion of this side of the parliament that anyone could do a better job than you, Mr Speaker, in maintaining the order and the discipline of this House. Mr Speaker, you discharged your office very effectively in the previous parliament and, if I may say so, you have done your job with even more dignity, more assurance and more command in the more difficult circumstances of this parliament. As you know, Mr Speaker, when there was some question as to whether the government would renominate you in the weeks after the election, it was the position of the coalition that you should be renominated, and nothing has changed in the intervening nine months to alter that view of the opposition that you are by far and away the best person to take the chair, that you are by far and away the best person to do what is inevitably a difficult job in the circumstances of a hung parliament.

Mr Speaker, I really do understand how you would be feeling at this present time. You made a call. It was the best call that you could make in your judgment at that time. On this side of the House, we respectfully disagreed with the call that you made. As it happened, our judgment was backed by the House. But please do not for a moment think, because of the fact that on this particular occasion, this solitary occasion, your judgment has not been supported by the House, that that indicates any want of confidence in your speakership. That is why I moved this motion. Please, Mr Speaker, do not judge what is the appropriate thing to do in the circumstances of this House by what might be the appropriate thing to do in the circumstances of very different houses. In this respect at least, this is genuinely a new paradigm and please, Mr Speaker, do not add to the difficulties of this day by feeling that you cannot continue in the chair.

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

Is the motion seconded?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise to second the motion and of course the government has continuing confidence in you as the Speaker of this parliament. It is not an easy job. It is definitely not an easy job in contested political circumstances to deal with all of the things that come before you in this parliament. I understand that and the government understands that. The government understands that you make the best judgment calls you can at the time. I thank the Leader of the Opposition for moving this motion and I am very pleased to second it.

Mr Speaker, we understand that there is a continuing obligation on members of this House not just to support this motion but to support your rulings as they are delivered to this parliament. That is an obligation that we will acquit on the government side. I do believe you should take the combined view of me and the Leader of the Opposition on this occasion. I understand the precedents that have borne down on these things in the past but this is a different circumstance and I believe that in this different circumstance, having heard from me and the Leader of the Opposition, you should act differently to speakers in the past. You should acknowledge that the House has made a decision on this occasion, but that should be the end of it.

But I would say this to members of the House who are now presumably behind the Leader of the Opposition and, in the exercise of their own independent judgment, about to support this confidence motion in you: the reality is that we should avoid future occasions where we find ourselves in this position—when we are called on to back your judgment on a matter such as a naming, the obligation will fall on us to do so. Mr Speaker, that is not something that should be second-guessed if people are going to have confidence in the Speaker. The government, in its conduct today, has shown full confidence in you by backing your judgment on the naming and, of course, we back this motion now. My words now are not directed to you but they are directed to the opposition: to provide continuing confidence in the Speaker, you need to provide continuing confidence in the Speaker's rulings.

Mr Speaker, in terms of the vote that we have just had, as I think was very evident from my conduct at the dispatch box, I did not hear you even name someone as the noise was so great. I am not able to say, standing at this dispatch box, what you named them for. I could not hear that either because the level of noise was so great. But I exercised my vote and the government exercised its vote in the way that we did because to provide confidence to the Speaker requires providing confidence in individual rulings of the Speaker. Whether or not we were in a position to judge as individuals the circumstances of any individual ruling, we provided that confidence. That is the attitude that the government will continue to take to providing confidence in you and I would ask members of the opposition to reflect on that for the future.

As for today, Mr Speaker, we are where we are and the Leader of the Opposition has taken the appropriate action given the way in which the opposition has cast its votes. In those circumstances I think the Leader of the Opposition has done the right thing, which is why I am prepared to second the proposed resolution to confirm to you that the government has complete confidence in you continuing. I believe that you, having heard from both me and the Leader of the Opposition, should accept that display of confidence in the full exercise of your good judgment on this matter.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I know there is a great deal of interest in this particular parliament and in six particular members of this parliament. In light of that, it is worth putting on the record support for full confidence in your continuing role in the chair as Speaker. I think it is important in this parliament to have some reflection on and backing up of the words of the previous speaker, the Prime Minister, in consideration of the place that naming has in the full life of the 43rd Parliament. The position that I just took, for example, is not without precedent; it is the same position I have taken before in regard to naming—where possible, in my view, to defend a private member's rights within this chamber. You will see that consistently in regard to issues such as the gag and in the full range of issues in regard to the rights of private members in this chamber. If I do not hear or see a particular issue that leads to a member being named, then I would have difficulty doing anything else other than defending that member's rights. So my position is not without precedent but I do not think it then necessarily leads us to the next step in this 43rd Parliament, which is incredibly tight, of a lack of confidence in your position as Speaker of this chamber. So I appreciate the motion being moved—I think it is appropriate that we do clarify this—and I would hope as a consequence of that today we do see the House once again express full confidence in your ongoing role as Speaker in this chamber.

Question agreed to.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.