Page 708 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 February 2012
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thing to do. Those people over there have not shown any honour. Mr Hanson comes at me constantly and his interjections across the chamber are sometimes enough to make people’s blood curdle. I cannot believe the breathtaking hypocrisy in what I have heard this morning.
I separate the job as a member of the Labor Party and Labor team from the position as chair of this place when I have the opportunity to occupy it. I also note that the appointment of Assistant Speakers is something that is within the realm of the Speaker. I did not choose to recommend to the Speaker who the Liberal opposition people should be, nor the crossbench. It is up to us to determine who that person shall be, remembering, please, Mr Speaker and colleagues, that we have only two people on this side of the chamber to do non-executive business; only two. Ms Porter is already the Deputy Speaker. To allow these people to get away with this would end up with a gross misrepresentation in this place.
I reject the underpinning notions of this motion. I find it offensive. I have had discussions with people such as the Deputy Chief Minister and conveyed to him my outrage at the suggestion. Mr Speaker, I would ask my colleagues to reject this motion.
MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (10.27): The Greens will not be agreeing to this motion. I am also an Assistant Speaker. Mr Hargreaves, to the best of my knowledge, has performed his role as an Assistant Speaker admirably. He has long parliamentary experience. He has a great knowledge of the standing orders. He has been a very effective and even-handed Assistant Speaker in all of the times that I have seen him as a Speaker. I see no reason to say that he should not be an Assistant Speaker.
I also note, as Mr Hargreaves did, that the role of Assistant Speaker is not within the gift of the Assembly. It is within the gift of the Speaker. From that point of view, this motion is simply irrelevant, apart from being ridiculous and basically just nasty. I am not trying to say this in any way as a threat, as anything that the crossbench is thinking of doing, but I think we should just remember a bit of Christian charity and what the Bible says, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
This is getting ridiculous. Everybody has made a mistake at some stage in their life, I am sure. I certainly have. I would be surprised if there was anyone in this Assembly who has never made a mistake. But keeping on and on about this is ridiculous. We actually have important things to do as an Assembly. This is not one of them. Mr Hargreaves has been an efficient and effective Assistant Speaker. I for one hope he will continue to be so.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (10.29): Mr Speaker, this motion is about the issue of fitness to serve and fitness to serve this Assembly. Mr Hanson in his motion has outlined the rising concerns that we on this side have with Mr Hargreaves’s behaviour and the rising concern that the community has about Mr Hargreaves’s behaviour. We had the inappropriateness of his behaviour last week in his intemperate outburst against the Tuggeranong Community Council, against older people and against named individuals. Then on top of that, we have the coming to light of his outburst in what could only be a slur against the orientation of a member of this place, a person that Mr Hargreaves has over many years feigned loyalty to.
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