Page 934 - Week 03 - Thursday, 22 March 2018
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I put on the record—and I hope I can speak on behalf of the opposition and the Greens whips as well—that the establishment of this select committee is being done in good faith, in that admin and procedure will continue to consider options available to the Assembly in future years. I am sure that the select committee will reflect on this throughout its run as well.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Privileges 2018—Select Committee
Proposed establishment
Debate resumed.
MADAM SPEAKER: I remind members that a question that was put to me before the debate was adjourned was about the impact of the Chief Minister having withdrawn his comments on the intent of the motion. The advice is that the question needs to be put, and, as I said before the debate was adjourned, the withdrawal effectively is an apology. The Chief Minister made that this morning, very clearly. I ask members to reflect on that when I put the question, as I do now, that the motion be agreed to.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (11.48): This is not a good thing to have to be debating in the Assembly. I am not saying this in light of it not being something that is worthy of consideration by the Assembly. That is not where I am trying to go. I am saying that the behaviour which led to it is not a good thing.
I am not a member of the relevant committee, but I was a member of the estimates committee and there was a fairly similar exchange between Mr Barr and Mr Hanson in that committee, which struck me very much as being inappropriate on many grounds. I characterised it, when I spoke to people afterwards, as two alpha males butting up against each other. This is absolutely not the way that we should behave in this place or in the adjacent committee rooms.
Speakers so far have made many comments about how this is not the sort of behaviour we should have in this place. I agree with that 100 per cent. Regardless of whatever happens in this particular instance, I would like us all to reflect on the statements that have been made about how we should behave in this place, take them to heart and basically stop being so aggro and rude at times. There is no other description for it. There is no point in it.
We should be here for the good government of the ACT; we should not be sometimes yelling abuse across the chamber. It is unparliamentary. It cannot always be stopped by the Speaker. There is too much of it, and I think it is very much not the way that any of us should be behaving. I hope that one good thing that comes out of this particular debate is that we all commit to not using unparliamentary language, to actually respecting the other people in this chamber, listening to them and treating them as adult human beings, because sometimes that really does not happen.
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