Motions

Speaker

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (22:58): I move:

That the Speaker be removed from the office of the Speaker.

When you were first elected to the office of Speaker, it was under very controversial circumstances: the former Speaker was elevated to the ministry and vacancies created by a scandal that had engulfed the government. There have been many scandals that have engulfed the government. They are difficult to remember. I had to look it up to remember exactly which scandal it was.

Mr Speaker, your first act as Speaker was to castigate the opposition leader for daring to tell his members of his political party that they would co-operate in full with any independent investigation into ICAC, claiming breaches of privilege, claiming that the Leader of the Opposition had acted inappropriately. I was expelled almost immediately for interjections that you found were disorderly while you were on your feet making your opening statement. You then, in record time, faced the first no-confidence motion of your Speakership, immediately afterwards in lieu of question time, where the opposition argued that you had shown a bias almost immediately.

Since that time you have thrown out of question time 118 Labor members—on 118 occasions you have thrown out a Labor member. To contrast that, government members on four occasions have been thrown out—four occasions. That is not an impartial Speakership.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: It is a shame. The removal of the Speaker is not something any member does lightly and, despite what was said in the arguments leading up to the suspension of standing orders, the opposition does this because the house has just passed I think a momentous constitutional amendment, that is, that we demand as a house, the crossbench and the opposition, independent adjudication of the house, impartial adjudication of the house, through an unbiased political prism.

Mr Speaker, you are a loyal Liberal. You are Liberal Party royalty. You are from a long line of Liberal MPs. You are probably going to be here for a long time, and I suspect you will have a long and fruitful career within the Liberal Party. They gave you the wrong job. You should not have been made Speaker; you should have been made a minister. You are not designed or built to be impartial. You are loyal to your team, and you want to see them succeed, and the evidence is borne out by the number of times you have expelled Labor members, often when they are the ones asking questions of ministers who are facing serious accusations, like the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, like the former Minister for Planning, like the current Attorney-General and like the Premier.

Whenever these ministers are under serious scrutiny from the opposition about accusations that should outrage the public and this house, often the way to silence that critique, that scrutiny, is just to expel the member, because the House of Assembly, when people control the numbers, behaves like a dictatorship.

The Hon. V.A. Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Here it is again.

The SPEAKER: Deputy Premier!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Whenever scrutiny is put towards the government, they hurl insults—how dare we! The Attorney-General is today the subject of a select committee and she still throws insults at us rather than showing any humility at all about what is occurring here today.

The Hon. V.A. Chapman: Do you even know what the word is?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Do I even know what the word is? I can tell you what the word is: the word is when you lose member after member after member through scandal, through fraud, through other means. I would look in a mirror rather than looking at me about why that has all occurred. This vote, this act, is about making sure that this house is governed by an independent member of parliament, and that that independent member of parliament puts the institution first, not the government.

The executive are not the parliament. Ministers are not the parliament—you are servants of the parliament. The parliament is supreme, and you are finding that out today in spades, that this parliament will no longer tolerate partisan politics, partisan political prisms of a Speaker ever again. We will now have, from this time forth, an independent Speaker, not a member of the two major governing parties, and I think that is a good thing and I am sure, Mr Speaker, that if this vote is successful and there are other activities that occur in other parts there may well be a vacancy very, very soon.

Mr Speaker, while you have been a loyal servant of the Liberal Party, that is not what this parliament needs. This parliament needs a loyal servant of the parliament, a loyal servant of the institution, someone who will call up members equally.

I point out to members that when an interjection occurs it is disorderly, but it is interesting that, when that interjection is called out without a point of order, that is the intervention of a Speaker into the debate. When points of order are brought up about members debating questions sometimes the Speaker rules in our favour; sometimes he does not. But, if we respond to interjections or if we use the only thing we have left to make a point, which is interjection and ridicule, we are thrown out. That serves no-one. The parliament, if it is adjudicated fairly, impartially and independently, will function better.

As we go towards an election, and probably one of the most important elections of our generation, given the once-in-100-year pandemic we are facing, what could be more important than to let there be a real contest of ideas on the floor of the House of Assembly? What could be more important than the scrutiny of a government and the decisions they are making?

Tomorrow's Advertiser will not be splashing or headlining the turmoil in the government. It will be talking about data being kept inappropriately after this house was promised it was being disposed of. Obviously, the opposition will have questions about that data being kept inappropriately by the government after this house was assured time after time that it was being destroyed, and who was it who blew the whistle on that data being kept inappropriately? An independent officer of this parliament: the Auditor-General.

We want another independent officer of this parliament to adjudicate our interrogation of that potential crime and who benefited from that. Was it inadvertent or was it deliberate? We want answers to these questions because South Australians have voluntarily given up many liberties in the name of protecting our state and keeping us all safe, but we have been assured that our privacy has always being protected and now we find that it has not.

So, Mr Speaker, we believe you can no longer continue in this role. We believe you must leave the chair. We believe that you belong with your comrades and colleagues on the government benches as a member participating as a Liberal because you can no longer do that given what the house has passed. It is clear to me, it is clear to the house, that we are able to pass a constitutional amendment for an independent Speaker. It is only appropriate now, sir, that you vacate the chair and that this house moves to elect a new Speaker who will bring a new era of independence that will begin today going forward in perpetuity.

From now on, the Speakership will not be a prize of either political party, but it will be in the custodianship of independent members who no longer serve their political masters but serve only the parliament. It is a noble ideal, and I am glad that the crossbench and the opposition are the ones pushing this. The mother parliament, the House of Commons, has operated exceptionally well, from the Major government to the Blair government, right through to the current Johnson government. The Speakers do not serve the executive but serve the institution, and did it not serve them well?

Most recently, when Boris Johnson prorogued the parliament illegally—it was found by the UK High Court to have acted inappropriately to stymie debate—who led that charge? The independent Speaker of the House of Commons. That is why we need an independent Speaker: to ensure that we have someone watching over the excesses of the executive, to make sure that the executive is held to account, that we do inquire into them when we think that they have done inappropriate things and that they are held here to answer questions.

That hour of question time is the most important hour this parliament spends, when the most powerful people in the state have to come to this place and answer questions—and answer questions truthfully and honestly. If they do not, they face the punishment of this house, and it should be adjudicated by someone independent.

You cannot throw out ALP members 118 times and government members four times and say you are independent. The numbers just do not add up. It just proves that we have a system that is broken. You were not the first one to be partisan, sir, you are just in a long line of them, Labor and Liberal. It does not mean you were not a good Speaker, but now what we want is something different. We want something new. We want something that will improve the parliament for all South Australians.

With those words, I commend the motion to the house. I hope this is passed unanimously, but I suspect it will not be, out of political loyalty. After the conclusion of this, I hope that we elect an independent member to govern this parliament between now and the dissolution of the parliament before the 2022 election.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (23:10): It is quite extraordinary that the member opposite, on behalf of the opposition, the combined Independent and Labor opposition, has said that none of this means you are a bad Speaker and yet apparently you have to go. We completely disagree with that. You have been a fine servant of this parliament, Mr Speaker. You have adorned this parliament with your participation, with your oversight, with your superintendence, the word that was used earlier on this evening. I would rate your performance compared with previous Speakers exceptionally well, so for the member opposite to say—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: He was not. He does not.

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my left!

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: For the member opposite to say that this does not mean you have been a bad Speaker but you have to go is ridiculous. For the member opposite to say that this is all about respect for the chamber but in this way, before this bill has even left this chamber, they want to act upon it as if it is a fait accompli shows absolutely zero respect for parliament.

Having jammed something through of their own will and now saying that that means because what they have in this chamber an effort to change the Constitution Act because they have it right here and now, that is good enough for them. They do not care about the upper house. They do not care about the government. They do not care about the process of parliament. They do not have the respect for parliament that they are claiming. It is absolutely ridiculous.

This business of trying to add up the numbers is like players on a field complaining because they cheat all the time and then the umpire calls them out on it over and over again, and then just because they have more players on the field they want to change the umpire, only because they cheated, because they were called out because they broke the rules. Their reflection upon themselves, highlighting the number of times that they infringed and that they were pulled up on infringing, is an indictment upon themselves, Mr Speaker, not upon you.

The Hon. L.W.K. Bignell interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Mawson!

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: You have been a truly outstanding Speaker. We do not support this motion.

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (23:13): So finally we get to what today was all about. That is what it is—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr KNOLL: —all about. The high-minded rhetoric of the member for West Torrens belies underlyingly what is just naked power. It just needs to be called out for what it is. For a man to think that this vote tonight is going to do anything to change the conventions of parliament is ridiculous. In fact, the butchering of conventions to get us to this vote shows that this is not about the good working order of this parliament; it is about numbers, and we should just be honest about that fact.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr KNOLL: So the only way that this parliament works is through convention.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Malinauskas: Stable government makes a difference.

The SPEAKER: Leader!

Mr KNOLL: What I mean by that is that the absence of convention—for instance, the continual interjection to try to interrupt a speaker speaking—ruins a convention to help the orderly processes of this house continue. In fact, at so many opportunities throughout the day we work on parliamentary convention. At so many points throughout the day we work on parliamentary convention so that we can get through the orderly business of the house.

To suspend standing orders at the start of the day to introduce a private member's bill, to switch government time into private members' time, to not use the normal process that those opposite rail against—and especially did with regard to those earlier COVID bills in relation to wanting to have briefings and all sorts of understanding and background and as much information as possible before making decisions on emergency bills.

Meanwhile, that was in regard to a pandemic, rather than this confected outrage and situation we find ourselves with today. To move to private members' time, to then suspend standing orders a further three or four times throughout the day, to move a sessional order—which interestingly expires once this parliament goes so if, heaven forbid, Labor get onto the treasury bench next time, this rule will not apply to them—it is only now for this situation because they believe that there is some short-term political advantage but they do not have to deal with the long-term consequences. The number of conventions today that have been butchered show that those opposite do not have what it takes to be grown-ups when it comes to running this place.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr KNOLL: They do not have what it takes because if it was anything other than that they would put a notice on the Notice Paper. It is only 24 hours.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Mawson!

Mr KNOLL: It is only 24 hours and they could have done things in the right way with regard to this no-confidence motion, with regard to debating sessional order changes which could have been done by giving notice today for tomorrow morning. It is just the height of hypocrisy. What I would also say to those opposite is that you are the company you keep, and when the member for Croydon first came to this place I thought that he was going to try to be better.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr KNOLL: You could see in him that there was some sort of innate righteousness. I thought, 'Here is a man that I would love to see use what is one of the toughest jobs in politics, being the opposition leader, to try to raise the standard of debate.' It is the opposition that needs to abide by the conventions in order for this to work. It is in opposition, when opposition show restraint, that conventions work. Oppositions have the opportunity to call quorum at all times during the day to try to disrupt the parliament, to move that speakers no longer be heard, to withdraw leave—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr KNOLL: —and any other different ways that they could disrupt parliament using the rules fair and square, but they do not and should not to keep the good orderly running of this house. The member for Croydon has failed and given in to the crass base politics of the member for West Torrens. This is a man whose smiles throughout the course of the day showed that this is the pinnacle of his existence; these games in this parliament are the pinnacle of his existence. Did any of it help the people of South Australia? No. Did any of it help to deal with the COVID pandemic that is going on at the moment? No. Did any of it help to improve the lot of South Australians and improve jobs in our economy? No.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Cheltenham! Order, the leader!

Mr Szakacs interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Cheltenham!

Mr KNOLL: What it did was give him the opportunity to play the childish games in this chamber that he enjoys playing. It is done with the tacit and explicit approval of the opposition leader and he should reflect very much on the company that he keeps.

Every time instances like this come up, these conventions get butchered. It always happens one at a time and it is incremental. 'We're not changing the standing orders much. We are just changing it so that you, Mr Speaker, can make the decision about when parliament sits, as distinct from the government.' 'Oh no, we just need to change it so that the Speaker doesn't have to be a member of a political party. That's only a minor change.' But these conventions get ruined one decision at a time and they do not come back. What we will have at the end of this is a parliament that either rules by brute force or is so unruly—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Cheltenham!

Mr KNOLL: —that it is difficult to get the job done. Ultimately, we are here at the express will of the people as they elected us, and they did elect a majority Liberal government at the last election.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member Hurtle Vale!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader!

Mr KNOLL: They elected a majority Liberal government for four years.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The leader will cease interjecting.

Mr KNOLL: But it seems that there are some in this place who feel that their opinion is worth more than the considered opinion of every single South Australian, and that is sad. Again, that is a butchering of another convention: the idea that governments get elected and they should be allowed to govern. These conventions get butchered one at a time—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Ramsay!

Mr KNOLL: —and they do not return. I would also like to say that we can sit here pretty in the knowledge that our democracy is robust, and it certainly is. But democracy itself is not infallible. In fact, younger generations more and more do not believe in democracy as the best form of government and the reason they do not is because of what we are doing here today. We have a higher purpose and a higher calling to actually defend democracy—

Mr Szakacs: Shut them out. Shut first-time voters out.

The SPEAKER: Member for Cheltenham!

Mr KNOLL: —because what happens is that young people, not as engaged in politics, see the petty behaviour that goes on in the chamber like we have seen today and they say, 'Well, if this is the product of democracy, then I want to think of something else. If this is what happens and this is the product of how we vote, then I want to see what the alternative systems are.' That is a massive problem.

We can all say, 'It's okay. We're only making a small, incremental change today. This does not matter one whit. We will get past today, we will have a new Speaker, everything will go on and everything will just be fine.' But only 7 per cent of people in this country trust their state politicians.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Cheltenham is warned. The member for Cheltenham will cease interjecting.

Mr KNOLL: We do rate higher than used-car salesmen, but I think that is the only profession. That is an absolute travesty and what we are seeking to do here today, what the opposition is seeking to do here today, is emblematic of that. Democracy is fragile. We can see in any number of places across the world where democracy is being subjugated. It all comes one step at a time. It is just a little change in order for Vladimir Putin to be able to get re-elected. We can all say we are a million miles away from that, but these conventions are taken away one at a time until they are not there anymore.

As we undertake this vote tonight, I think we should be very clear about what this is—and that is the fact that somebody wants to sit in that chair and earn more money.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, the member for Hurtle Vale!

Mr KNOLL: That is fine, but let's call it out for what it is. Let's call it out exactly for what it is.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Giles!

Mr KNOLL: As somebody who has existed through the last parliament and this parliament, anyone trying to suggest that in the last parliament there was not an imbalance between opposition members and government members being thrown out would need to have such a revisionist view of history that they would need to put on some glasses. It could also be that oppositions are the ones who interject more, but of course in this chamber we no longer take responsibility for our actions. The opposition seems not to vote on behalf of their own free will; it is obviously just the government's fault the way that they vote.

Mr Speaker, I have seen in you somebody who has considerable legal experience at the highest level within South Australia and somebody who has applied that legal experience in a thoughtful and considered way without fear or favour. The reason I say without fear or favour is that it would have been easy, on first coming into the chair, to let the first few slide while you were new in the chair and to not rock the boat. But you were keen to set a standard from day one that this is what we expect, this is what I expect, the behaviour that I will or will not put up with. That is acting without fear or favour.

When somebody does not like the decision you make, they straightaway call into question your motives instead of reflecting on their own behaviour that led to the decision in the first place. Of course, we have had no debate of that tonight. It is simply, 'You told me off, therefore you are the one who is wrong, not me, because I could not possibly have done anything wrong,' and that is a farce. That is an absolute farce.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr KNOLL: So, Mr Speaker, as we undertake this vote tonight, you should know that you have done an exemplary job in the chair as somebody who has stood up for the traditions and conventions of this parliament, as somebody who has been extremely thoughtful, especially dealing with the difficulties in question time and has been able to find a cogent balance and understanding of what due process is.

It all comes back to the good, proper and easy working of this house. The decisions you make allow us to undertake the business of this house in an orderly fashion. As this vote is undertaken tonight—and as has happened with every other vote today—I think we can all count, but I think we should all understand that it is only because we can count that this decision is being made, as distinct from anything that you have done while you have sat in that chair.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (23:26): After 3½ years, this government and the political party from which it is drawn is finally being held to account, and don't they hate it? Don't they squirm at the increased amount of scrutiny, accountability and obligation they suddenly find themselves in to the people of South Australia?

The defence we have from the member for Schubert is: you should not be seeking to exert any power over how the parliament has been run over the last 3½ years, how we have conducted ourselves in government over the last 3½ years and how the chamber has been superintended over the last 3½ years, because of convention. That is a weak and bogus argument because what we have had over the last 3½ years, pretty much from day dot, is a scandal-plagued government.

At each juncture, when the opposition has sought to hold this government to account for scandal after scandal after scandal, for the ignorance displayed of those scandals, for the sweeping under the rug—both by the executive government and by the presiding members—the Liberal Party has used its numbers in this place to shut debate down, to curtail any questioning and to move on as quickly as possible.

I cannot remember a 3½-year period of this parliament which has seen such a frequency, let alone an extremity, of scandal that we have had from this government. We have had a country members' accommodation allowance scandal which has claimed scalp after scalp after scalp and, as the member for West Torrens has said, in part is the reason why you, sir, as the member for Heysen, find yourself in the Speaker's chair rather than anywhere else in this parliament.

In fact, it was the member for Schubert, one of those members who out of what I think he said was just 'merely an abundance of caution' had to pay back tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer-funded allowances to the parliament—something the Premier sought to dismiss as a minor administrative error only. That is not how the state's integrity commission thinks of these sort of matters. When we have sought to question that matter, or the unprecedented bringing to the surface of allegations of MP and staff behaviour in the parliament over recent years, we have had presiding members who have not handled those investigations well.

We had the member for Hartley procure some private gumshoe to do some investigation, under what authority we still do not know, and to what end we still do not know. We had a government of course that refuted the opportunity to have the equal opportunity commissioner launch an investigation into behavioural standards in the parliament until of course it became obvious that they could not resist it any longer and so finally in November, some 10 months after the call was first made, the government relented.

What has happened out of those allegations? We still have two uninvestigated and untested allegations, presumably about the behaviour of members of parliament within the parliament precinct. I am not referring to any of those matters that have been ventilated elsewhere. We have serious allegations raised by staff in this place of sexual assault and sexual harassment that still go uninvestigated and that still go without any further action. To me, I find it a distinct embarrassment that I would be part of a workplace that refuses to take that sort of action.

But what happens in question time when the opposition and even members of the crossbench seek to hold executive government to account? We raise legitimate questions—fair questions—and we have the member for Stuart and the member for Morialta and even, regrettably, the member for Unley sometimes stand up and seek to prevent the opposition or constrain the opposition in the questions that they ask seeking to raise minor technicalities in some sort of generous reinterpretation of the standing orders, which, almost without exception, sir, you uphold in favour of the government.

Then when a question goes to be answered by a minister, we have these long rambling debating answers that stray as far away from the topic of the question as possible, and if the opposition or a member of the crossbench should raise exception to that, raising a breach of standing order 98, almost without exception those points of order are not upheld, so we have a massive imbalance in how the chamber is treated during, as the member for West Torrens said, the most important hour of the parliamentary day, where the government does its best to avoid scrutiny and the opposition is restrained from applying scrutiny and pressure to the government.

I cannot tell you how debilitating that is, not to us as MPs so much but for the whole purpose of the parliament. We exist here to ensure, particularly in question time, that responsible government is being exercised and that is being thwarted not just by those rulings that you have undertaken but by your immediate predecessor, the member for Hartley.

We even did a reconciliation of how much of the hour of question time was devoted to opposition questions versus how much time was devoted to Dorothy Dixers from the government in the first two years of the member for Hartley's stewardship of this chamber and two years in a row more time was allocated in question time to Dorothy Dixers than was allowed from opposition questions. That is outrageous—absolutely outrageous—particularly as, after finally tripping over into government after 16 years of manifest incompetence in parliament, this government was afforded, almost without exception, for the last term of government between 2014 to 2018, to have a free run of question time.

I can remember when members of the opposition frontbench back then would ask at least half an hour of questions unbroken of a minister to apply a real blowtorch—real pressure—and hold government to account. We do not get anything like that whatsoever and that is the difference in standards. I remember the questions to the former ministers for child protection, the former member for Enfield and the current member for Port Adelaide. It was half an hour of scrutiny. What does the member for Adelaide get? Zilch, and in fact when we do ask questions of the member for Adelaide—

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: The member for Lee will resume his seat.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —she seeks to shut down the questions. The Minister for Child Protection rises on a point of order.

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: In opposition, I stood up many times and was completely ignored by the previous Speaker.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my left! It is very difficult for me to hear the Minister for Child Protection rising on a point of order, where there is this level of interjection in the house. I did manage to hear the minister, I think. In the circumstances, there is no point of order. The member for Lee has the call.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Then we come to the member for Stuart, the third Leader of Government Business we have had in just over three years. He says what the opposition and the crossbench are now attempting to do is akin to a football team of cheats on a field having been pinged for cheating the rules and, having been told off by the umpire, wanting to change the umpire.

That is an outrageous slur, given what the facts and statistics of the superintendence of question time show. But if the member for Stuart wants to use a sporting analogy, perhaps he could consider his football team and the salary cap breaches and the misdemeanours of play behaviour at the end of season functions. We have even had players walk out on the team mid-season, member for Stuart, if that is the sporting analogy you are looking for.

Now in this place, amongst the 47 of us there has been a levelling of opportunity in this place. There is now the opportunity to hold the government and indeed the Speaker to account for their behaviour for the last 3½ years. Well, how you all squirm—and rightly so. The scandals that have gone uninvestigated by this parliament because the opposition and the crossbench have been shut down should raise genuine concern, if not fear, amongst the public of South Australia.

We still have not got to the bottom of how the Liberal Party of South Australia has been misusing data taken from members of the public's use of government websites. We still have not had an answer from the Premier about a cyber attack which occurred apparently a year ago, in November 2020, and whether any South Australian's personal data was compromised, whether any data from any South Australian's driver's licence has been accessed by hackers.

This is laughed off by the member for Bragg as being inconsequential, but these are the concerns that people have. We are in a different, challenging, uncertain world now—with not just COVID but all these other extraneous pressures placed on people. They expect our parliamentarians to be able to stand up in here and raise the issues that are of concern to them, rather than having them shut down, either by ministers refusing to answer, or not taking them seriously, or being protected by a Speaker seeking to do his political party's bidding.

It gives me absolutely no pleasure to be participating in this debate, let alone supporting this motion, but we are without any other option because we have had two goes at this from the Liberal Party and it is not working for the parliament and, if it is not working for the parliament, it is not working for the community. We have to continue going back to our communities and try to explain why we cannot give them answers about the things they are concerned about that are happening in the government. Well, that is unsatisfactory.

The reason we are doing this is that hopefully we will be better armed to give our communities the representation and the voice they deserve in this place so that we can hold the government to account, not just for all the scandals that we have encountered over the last three years but the ones that have continued to be uninvestigated. We will be doing that and, whoever we will be dealing with as the new Speaker, we look forward to having a better superintended place up until the next state election.

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (23:39): I will make a brief contribution—a number of brief sentences—to this debate, which I would not ordinarily do but feel compelled to do on this occasion. Members of this place will be well aware that my arrival at the crossbench was a rather reluctant arrival here. I would much rather still be sitting in my normal chair on the other side of parliament. The circumstances behind that arrival have been well canvassed in the public and as well tonight; they have featured a number of times in the commentary tonight. Regardless, I was a rather reluctant arrival on the crossbench.

When I did get here, though, one of the attractions that was presented to me as something that might be of benefit for the rest of my time here in parliament was that I might have 'the ability to get stuff done'. I might be able to achieve something for my electorate as an Independent sitting on the crossbench.

Well, it causes me great distress that we have spent over 12 hours of the precious few hours we have left here in this parliament this term wasting time, in my view. There is not a single voter in Narungga who is better off after today as a result of almost 12 hours of debate, and that causes me great distress. As someone who nominated with the best of intentions to try to deliver outcomes for the voters in Narungga, I am greatly saddened that we have wasted an entire day of parliament—

The Hon. L.W.K. Bignell interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Mawson!

Mr ELLIS: —debating what is an inside political game, a game within a game, basically, a political game to satisfy a few within the chamber. That caused me great distress, and I feel compelled to put that on the record.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Does the member for West Torrens wish to seek the call? The member for West Torrens.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (23:40): I would like to thank members for their contributions to this I think historic debate. Going forward, I think we are now going to have a new era of independence and independent adjudication of the parliament, which will serve all South Australians greatly. It will improve the quality of debate, the quality of scrutiny, which will only improve the quality of the government and the quality of the opposition and indeed give better outcomes for the people of South Australia.

It is more than a game. This is important. Scrutiny matters in democracies. That is why this parliament is U-shaped. It is an adversarial system. This is how the framers decided that we should conduct ourselves, and this is in the best tradition of our Westminster democracy.

The SPEAKER: Order! The question before the house is that the Speaker be removed from the office of the Speaker. It is a motion that is within the power of the house pursuant to section 34 of the Constitution Act.

Ayes 24

Noes 22

Majority 2

The SPEAKER: Honourable members, before I vacate the chair I just wish to indicate to the house that I have been honoured to have been elected as Speaker of the house. I give the house my assurance that I have endeavoured to do my very best in this role. I have enjoyed every moment of it and I thank the house very sincerely for the privilege.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!