Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise to endorse your comments. The government supports the statement that you have made wholeheartedly. We recognise the authority of the chair in this and many other instances. The chair’s role in this place is an important one. This is one of those important times when we require the cooperation of all senators to ensure that the Senate continues in a way that befits its role in a parliamentary democracy.

Occasionally we find that people do stray from that narrow path set by the rules. In those instances, the chair and the chair’s authority is integral to ensuring that we return to that path in order to allow us to debate the important matters that are raised in this chamber, to debate the issues before the chair. We then need to use all of our ability to engage in those debates rather than be distracted by extraneous matters or interjections. It is the responsibility of all people in this chamber not to be distracted by the occasional interjection. Of course those interjections are disorderly and of course they should not be made, but I recognise, and I think everyone in this chamber recognises, that on occasions people are driven to making an interjection. It is certainly not a new phenomenon and I am certain that it will continue in future.

However, that does not detract from the fact that it is the chair who is charged with the responsibility of ensuring order in this place. The action that the chair took yesterday was proper and the ruling that you, Mr President, were asked to contemplate and report back on was proper. The government recognises that it was a matter that needed to be reported back on quickly and you have done so. The government appreciates your promptness in bringing it back here.

It is important that everybody in this chamber recognises that the chair plays an extraordinarily important role in maintaining order in this chamber. Where order is departed from, the chair’s role is clear: to bring people back to order so that the debate can continue. Sometimes it is necessary for people to recognise, even if they think they have been hard done by—I think everyone in this chamber sometimes thinks that, through a ruling of the chair, they have been hard done by—that the proper functioning of this chamber requires that, when that happens, they accept the chair’s ruling and move on to the important debates of this chamber.

Question agreed to.