Page 3195 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 16 August 2011
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views. They have the right to challenge such laws using all the democratic tools, again and again if necessary. It does not allow the right to simply ignore or disobey them.
He continues:
This incident raises a momentous question for people considering voting for the Greens. Is a vote for the Greens a vote for a party wanting to dictate their view of the world or is it a vote for a party wanting to fairly participate in and influence the democratic process?
Did Shane Rattenbury learn from this? Did he recant his clearly erroneous position? No. He went on not only to continue to defend the law breakers but to encourage others to do the same. Under an article entitled “Why I support illegal protests” Shane Rattenbury continues:
At the heart of those concerns appears to be the notion that, as a politician, I should no longer support the right of citizens to participate in peaceful, and even unlawful, protest.
That is actually the core of this debate: when you accept the responsibility to become a law-maker, you cannot take the side of the law breakers.
Shane Rattenbury then tries to blur the lines between peaceful protest or civil disobedience and violent, aggressive, intrusive, destructive and illegal behaviours. One is an important part of a free-speaking democracy. The other is anathema to all those who support the rule of law over the thuggery of the streets.
Lastly, Shane Rattenbury makes a truly astonishing statement:
Governments can be influenced by vested interests and don’t always make decisions that are in the best interest of the community, and civil disobedience has been a powerful way to challenge Governments to rethink when other more “legitimate” forms of protest have failed.
Mr Rattenbury is a member of a party that supports a government, so I find this statement utterly baffling, and it triggered my motion today. I will outline the reasons why it is untenable for Mr Rattenbury to remain in the chair of the Assembly as Speaker with the confidence of the Assembly.
Reason 1: he has failed to uphold respect for the law. As I said in my response article, the rule of law is not an optional extra for law-makers. As members of the Legislative Assembly, our code of conduct states that we “agree to respect and uphold the law”. Mr Rattenbury has failed to do so. He has failed to do so explicitly and repeatedly.
There are very good reasons why this is important. No mainstream political party can or should condone the deliberate and illegal destruction of property, no matter how strongly held are the beliefs of the people who carry out these acts. Imagine the outrage if climate change sceptics decided to destroy the offices of the scientists at the CSIRO who conduct climate change modelling. What would happen if extremists
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