Page 719 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 February 2012

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We have a pretty simple choice here today. We have a choice about whether Mr Hargreaves should resign or not and whether we should call on him to. Let me go to the standing order that makes it very clear that he can do that if he chooses to:

The Speaker shall nominate at the commencement of every Assembly not more than 3 Members, not being Ministers, any one of whom who shall act as Assistant Speaker. The Speaker may revoke the nomination of any Member. An Assistant Speaker may resign in writing to the Speaker.

So it is quite right that we can call on Mr Hargreaves to resign, and he can. And as Mr Smyth has rightly pointed out, there are no problems. There are plenty of members that could perform the role of Assistant Speaker.

Mr Hargreaves made a very clear point that he is not partisan in the chair. You can debate that, but he said that he is not partisan in the chair. So by that logic, it should not really matter where the Assistant Speakers come from, unless he is saying, “I am not partisan, but if Jeremy Hanson became an Assistant Speaker he would be entirely partisan.”

Then again, you see the sort of moral high ground and you hear interjections again from the government. It is a sort of moral high ground that they are on. Why is it that he has got to be there? What is he? Is he the only one that will be non-partisan in the chair? Is Ms Le Couteur partisan or non-partisan? Could Ms Bresnan take over the role of Assistant Speaker? Could Mr Coe take over the role of Assistant Speaker? Any of us could.

So it is a falsehood to say that he cannot step down simply because we need someone from each party, someone who is apolitical. We have got two members from the Greens currently who stand in as Speaker. One is the Speaker, one is an Assistant Speaker. We have got two members from the Labor Party. One is the Deputy Speaker and one is an Assistant Speaker. But we have only got one member from the Liberals. (Time expired.)

Question put:

That Mr Hanson’s motion be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the negative.

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