THE SPEAKER’S ROLE IN DEALING WITH DISORDERLY BEHAVIOUR
THE CALM AFTER THE STORM: ARE STORM CLOUDS BREWING AGAIN? THE SPEAKER’S ROLE IN DEALING WITH DISORDERLY BEHAVIOUR
Hon. Kezia Purick, MLA is
the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory, Australia. Previously she was head of the Northern Territory’s resource industry group. She was first elected to Parliament in 2008 and re-elected in 2012 when she was also elected as Speaker. Kezia Purick has attended CPA conferences in Kenya, Samoa, New Zealand and Australia and is a former CPA Executive Committee Member for the Australia Region.
As the Northern Territory reaches its mid-term mark, two years after the 2016 election and two years before the 2020 General Election, it is timely to pause and assess how orderly the 13th Assembly is and consider comparisons with the 12th and previous Assemblies to consider which was the most tumultuous in the short and colourful history of the Northern Territory legislature. The 12th Assembly ran from 2012 to 2016 and had what would kindly be referred to as some big personalities. At least six Ministers in the Cabinet (unofficially) actively wanted the role of Chief Minister for themselves with three Ministers serving or attempting to serve in the top job. I won’t go into detail here about the bizarre midnight coup of 3 February 2015, just enter that into your favourite search engine for more details. A revolving door of Cabinet reshuffles (18 in four years) and the sheer number of Deputy Chief Ministers reflected the lack of consistent leadership in Government. This had a significant impact upon the Legislative Assembly. A Government with initially 16 Members in August 2012 was reduced to a perilous minority of 11 by the time of the 2016 election. With a new Assembly came renewal. We have not even had a Cabinet reshuffle since the first Ministry was announced after the 2016 election. The Country Liberals were soundly defeated in 2016 with only two Members being returned to a shrunken Opposition bench and 18 Labor Government Members now occupying the Treasury benches in
194 | The Parliamentarian | 2018: Issue Three
the 25 Member Parliament. This article examines the statistics of the disruption and misbehaviour in a number of Legislative Assemblies of the Northern Territory but particularly the 12th Assembly (2012 -2016) in comparison to the first two years of the 13th Assembly and gives some consideration to whether the storm before the calm was an anomaly or whether further storms are brewing. The Personality of a Parliamentarian Before I delve specifically into the Northern Territory Assembly, I was amused to recently come across some interesting general character analysis of the constitution of a Member of Parliament from a former Member of the UK House of Commons: “Nobody without a gambling streak, a taste for uncertainty and a belief in his (sic) own luck would embark upon a Commons career… Men often go into politics to prove something which they feared might be in doubt. ‘One day I’ll be popular…In short the parliamentary selection process attracts adventurers with more bravado than self-confidence, more ‘chutzpah’ than emotional security. Then it lands them in what is, for long stretches a spectacularly boring job. Being an MP feeds your vanity and starves your self-respect.” These rather sensational words contained in the introduction to his book Great Parliamentary Scandals: Four Centuries of Calumny, Smear and Innuendo, were published in 1995 by Matthew Parris, a Times newspaper columnist and the former Conservative MP who was
the Member for West Derbyshire in the UK House of Commons during the 1980s. While perhaps not always applicable, it does strike me that these words may have some relevance to what occurs from time to time in our various jurisdictions. And I note Mr Parris said it was about men - perhaps it is particularly relevant for men entering Parliament. In the Northern Territory, the 13th Assembly commenced with a very calm atmosphere and, until I started putting this article together, there had not even been a single ‘warning’ to any Member let alone an ejection from the Chamber. Liar! All that changed in May 2018 when the first ejection occurred after a Member disregarded my ruling they must withdraw offensive words. Intriguingly, that Member has continued to seek clarification about the ruling in two email communications to me since then. On 3 May 2018, a Member used the word ‘liar’ which I ruled out of order. It was directed at the Chief Minister by way of an interjection as follows: Member: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Standing Order 110: relevance. You did lie to the people of Alice Springs - a blatant lie. Madam Speaker: Withdraw. Member: I do not withdraw because he has lied. Madam Speaker: Leave the Chamber. Member: More than happy. In and of itself this was not particularly notable. Life went