Topic: State and Territory Government
In parliament this week, Queensland Speaker Pat Weir gave a stern warning to MPs. ( AAP Image: Darren England )
This week, the Speaker of Queensland Parliament appealed to the state's 93 MPs to "start respecting each other", repeating his warning that "personal vitriol is overtaking common decency".
Two hours later, after a heated Question Time, he admitted in a radio interview with 612 ABC Brisbane that he had been roundly ignored.
While Speaker Pat Weir said he "just hopes" parliamentary conduct does improve, a respected former speaker said he was deliberately undermined by the government and must use his powers to lift the tone of debate.
To be fair, to the Speaker of the notoriously brutish Queensland Parliament, Pat Weir started this week's session strongly.
With parliament resuming Tuesday, he delivered what — on paper at least — appeared to be a stern warning, urging the state's MPs to confront the ugliness of their political discourse and face up to the dangers it breeds.
"The quarrelling in the chamber is incessant," he said.
He complained of the "easy use of inflammatory, unparliamentary language".
Despaired that "serious allegations are hurled across the chamber in this house … the peddling of false narratives increases each week".
"It is time to reset," he declared.
Yet, all this was delivered in the halting, quiet, gravelly voice of the 66-year-old Toowoomba MP, who before entering parliament 11 years ago, was a lifelong mixed farmer and cattle breeder, with a keen interest in the local rodeo, and the cricket and golf clubs.
Pat Weir says he hopes parliamentary conduct improves in Queensland. ( ABC Rural: Brandon Long )
Within minutes, the intensely partisan tone had returned in a rowdy Question Time in which MPs from all sides shouted interjections across the Chamber.
In answer to a question about her youth justice portfolio, minister Laura Gerber was yelling a sledge at the Opposition Leader.
"[His] own front bench leaking to the media about the fact that they want him gone. Time is well and truly up. Mate, you're cooked," she said.
There was no intervention from the Speaker.
The Attorney-General clearly had the same script and delivered it at the same volume, claiming one of the Opposition Leader's colleagues had "stabbed her leader in the back" during a media interview.
After objections from Labor and a reminder from the Speaker about his comments on the tone of the house, Deb Frecklington concluded her answer with: "We don't know whether her steak was medium rare or well done, but we do know that the Leader of the Opposition is cooked. Time's up. Tick-tock, tick-tock."
In an interview with 612 ABC Brisbane an hour after that bruising Question Time, a weary Pat Weir could not offer much.
"Yeah, well … let's hope it all improves tomorrow because no doubt those speeches and all that strategy was worked out this morning before I gave my address."
This, in a week in which one Greens MP, Michael Berkman, revealed he had sought counselling to deal with the aggression and hostility of the parliamentary workplace and two other crossbench MPs revealed their distress at watching an under-pressure Independent MP crying openly in parliament, prior to his death.
A respected former Labor speaker, John Mickel, was unusually blunt in his assessment.
"That's bulls**t," he said, referring to Pat Weir's concession that perhaps the government had locked in its parliamentary tactics before his plea for better behaviour.
"What happened was the executive arm of government set out to undermine the Speaker. It was deliberate."
Former Labor Queensland speaker John Mickel. ( ABC News: Chris Gillette )
He said the Speaker should have immediately used his powers to intervene to insist MPs heed his call to improve the tone of debate.
As the Speaker, "you've got to enforce it".
"Mate, you're cooked," should have been pulled up by the Speaker, he said.
"Nobody's ever called 'mate' in that place. If the speaker allows you to get away with that, after having made the [earlier] statement, well …"
John Mickel served as Speaker of the House from 2009 to 2012. ( Luise Straker: 612 ABC Brisbane )
The LNP had a similar list of grievances this week about the treatment of its ministers, including the sustained, intense parliamentary questioning of Amanda Camm, who quit the troubled child safety portfolio last week.
"The devastating incident involving Helen Haines also has reinforced the importance of taking concerns about personal health, safety and well-being of people in public life very seriously," said Ms Camm at her resignation press conference.
"Public scrutiny and accountability are essential to democracy and to our institutions. Harassment, threats, bullying and personal vilification are not. And for the past year this has been my experience."
"That bullying didn't all happen in the House," he said before conceding, "Yeah, so she was the focal point of a lot of questions in the House. And actually, she always acquitted herself fairly well, I thought."
Speaker Weir said it was up to the parliament itself to determine whether there was any merit in tougher standing orders to control Queensland's single house of parliament, where the majority government of the day dominates.
Whether Labor or LNP is in power, they never need to rely on a single opposition vote, so bipartisanship is simply not necessary.
"The winner-takes-all reality of Queensland Parliament has a huge impact on discourse," said Mr Berkman.
"It's like the government doesn't have to use Parliament for any meaningful debate or to rationalise or justify their position.
Michael Berkman revealed this week he had sought counselling to deal with the aggression and hostility of the parliamentary workplace ( ABC News: Janelle Miles )
One of the most well-reported incidents this year occurred in May when the Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleije claimed, without evidence, that at least five MPs were having illicit affairs. The accusations flew during a broader debate about whether two Crisafulli government ministers had properly disclosed their sexual relationship.
After that bruising Question Time, Labor MPs lined up in front of news cameras to put on record they were not sleeping with their workmates. Most media organisations chose not to name those who had been tarred as philanderers under parliamentary privilege.
While earlier, similar accusations that day were withdrawn by Mr Bleijie after Speaker Weir intervened following Opposition objections, the final list of those publicly shamed drew no response.
Hansard records that the Opposition made no objection, so the Speaker was not required to rule on a formal point or order. And he took no action himself.
"He's got the right to say that and make public statements … and I suppose it's up to the public to decide whether they're in the public interest or not," Mr Weir said.
He added he could not recall whether he was in the Speaker's chair that day. He was.
