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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-09-23 Daily Xml
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Parliamentary Procedure

Standing Orders Suspension

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (16:29): I move:

That standing orders be so far suspended as to enable me to move a motion without notice forthwith.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens, I need to count the house to see if there is an absolute majority. There being an absolute majority, member for West Torrens.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I seek to suspend standing orders to enable me to move the following motion:

That this house—

1. Condemns and censures the member for Unley for his statements in the House of Assembly on 23 September 2020, when he deliberately and wilfully used anti-Semitic taunts and insults towards the member for Reynell.

2. Reaffirms that this house will not tolerate or accept racist and anti-Semitic conduct from any member of the House of Assembly; and

(a) calls on the member for Unley to immediately apologise to South Australia's Jewish community for his racist and anti-Semitic conduct in the parliament of South Australia; and

(b) condemns the member for Unley for his racist appropriation of religious symbols sacred to the Jewish people for the purposes of political insults.

The SPEAKER: There is a motion to suspend standing orders; is it seconded?

An honourable member: Yes, sir.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The reason I wish to suspend standing orders, and I believe it is urgent that we consider this matter now, is that I believe nothing is more urgent than stamping out anti-Semitic and racist behaviour when we see it, immediately. It is fair to say that we were all pretty shocked at the racist and anti-Semitic behaviour and the taunts used by the member for Unley.

If this house does not suspend standing orders now, it means we walk by the abuse we saw and therefore that is the standard we accept. I do not believe any member of this house, other than the member for Unley, would accept anti-Semitic and racist taunts. I have seen it in this house too often and it has to stop. This is a new century. This parliament is diverse. This parliament has lots of different ethnicities and faiths in this building. We should honour them all. We should not allow the appropriation of religious symbols for any other purpose.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Point of order: I believe at the moment we are debating the urgency of the suspension of standing orders, not the broader issues of racial discrimination, which the member is talking about.

The SPEAKER: The nature of the motion is being addressed by the member for West Torrens and I am listening carefully. I do remind the member for West Torrens to stick to the need to suspend standing orders.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Thank you, sir. The reason I think it needs to interrupt the business of the house is that this house cannot tolerate that behaviour. It just cannot tolerate it. We cannot go on as if nothing else happened. We cannot just assume that racism when it occurs and we see it and we are all horrified by it—and I have to say, to the government's credit, many members of it were also horrified by the racist conduct of the member for Unley. That is why it is important that we deal with it now. The house has time. The house has the ability to suspend its standing orders now and consider this immediately and censure this member.

The merits of censure will be debated if the standing orders are suspended, but the question we have to ask ourselves now as a chamber is: do we go on with the rest of the day's business and ignore what we all know, saw and heard happened in this chamber? Do we just ignore it? Do we walk by it? Do we say it is okay? The idea that we walk by a political insult using a sacred religious symbol like the Star of David, and its connotations to what occurred in the past being applied as a political insult, I think breaches any decency standard set by anyone.

I know members opposite are just as horrified, and I have to say I bet you they are just as sick of this member doing it over and over again. There is form, so we do need to suspend standing orders. We cannot just go on as if nothing else has happened. We cannot just pretend that a withdrawal is enough. A censure must be debated. This house must stop it.

Members may or may not choose to suspend standing orders to allow us to debate this. They may wish to go on to the ordinary business of debating the Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill or the FOI bill or even an adjournment, but I have to say that we need to stop right now, nip this in the bud right now and 46 of us condemn the one who behaved appallingly.

It gives me no pleasure that in 2020 I feel the need to stop the conduct of the house and suspend standing orders from the normal business that the people require from us, that the government have prioritised for us to debate. They are important matters. We have important disagreements over those matters, but what is more important is what the people see of their house and their representatives and about what they view on religious tolerance and decency.

I have been called racist names in this parliament before. I have seen it happen in the other chamber. I have seen racism in politics. It is abhorrent, it is awful and both sides have condemned it. So here it is again before us. Do we walk by it or do we do the right thing, allow the debate, censure the member and move on and give the member the opportunity to apologise to the Jewish community, give him the opportunity to understand the hurt that he caused the member for Reynell, give him the opportunity to understand that his behaviour is unacceptable in the 21st century, that it is unacceptable of any standard in any Westminster parliament and that it is unacceptable in any decent gathering of people here to do the people's business?

I do not know if it was just a rush of blood, but I think that calmly and quietly we should stop the business of the house just for a moment—half an hour—debate the censure, pass it and move on. Just to reassure the government, the motion does not call for the minister to be terminated. What we are saying is that we want him to understand the hurt he has caused. We want him to understand what it means to be Jewish and what the Star of David means to them. It is not something to be trivialised or thrown about as a political insult. It is not something to be thrown around as in a bar-room brawl. It is sacred and it means something: it is God's promise to the people of Israel.

I have to say that if we cannot find half an hour to talk about that, what can we do? Nothing is more important than immediately stamping out racism where we sit. I ask members to consider the suspension and to consider that it will do no harm. It will do good for all of us. It will allow this house to maintain the dignity that it deserves and is expected and demanded by the people of South Australia.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (16:38): The government will not support the suspension of standing orders. Let me say very clearly that we will not support the suspension of standing orders. That is not to say that we do not agree with some of the comments made by the member for West Torrens. I am sure that almost all of us in this house have identical views, and the ones that are not identical would be extremely similar.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for West Torrens was heard in silence. The Minister for Energy and Mining is entitled to be heard in silence.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Thank you, Speaker. What I said was that almost all of us would have identical views about racism, and some of us would have slightly different views through our slightly different experiences. Some people would have experienced racism; some people would not have experienced it. Some people, like me, would have family members only three generations ahead of me who were victims of the Holocaust. Most of us will have a very similar, if not identical, view, but we will all be broadly in the same boat through our different experiences.

My experience is strong on this issue, but that does not mean that I support the suspension of standing orders. They are two very different things. The opposition and the member for West Torrens have other means at their disposal, if they choose to pursue this issue, other than suspension of standing orders, and they are quite within their rights to do that.

With regard to the member for Unley, I do not believe for a second that he is racist. I do believe that he was called out and asked to apologise for his remarks, and he did so. He was asked twice to apologise for his remarks, and he did so. Mr Speaker, that is what you asked of him at the time, when members of the opposition identified the remarks that he made, and he immediately did exactly that, so, Mr Speaker, at least to your satisfaction at the time, it was dealt with. If to the opposition's perspective it has not been dealt with sufficiently, there are other means for the opposition to pursue that, but the government does not believe that a suspension of standing orders is the right way to go.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (16:41): I thank the Leader of Government Business for his remarks. It shows the deep-seated view we all have to combat racism, but I point out to the government that, when the member withdrew, his opening remarks to the house were, 'I don't think I said that.' They were not those exact words; I apologise to the house. I have inquired of members of the parliament about what exactly it is they heard, including members who are not members of the opposition. It is not enough. This parliament needs to stop for half an hour, debate this censure, let the member for Unley have his say, let us have our say and heal this wound that has been inflicted on the parliament by one member.

It is a wound that we need to heal now, and we can do it in a constructive and bipartisan way. It does not have to be Labor versus Liberal. It can be South Australians standing up together and condemning racism with one voice and saying that anti-Semitic behaviour will not be tolerated. The parliament can suspend for half an hour. Every member of the opposition is prepared to stay half an hour extra to do the government's work. None of us will leave until the government is prepared to adjourn the house. We will stay in the parliament as long as you need us. As long as you need us here tonight, we will stay.

What we ask is that we heal this scar now and that the member for Unley face the other 46 electorates and his own about his remarks in this chamber. It is not acceptable to have a member use that type of language against another in this chamber because it trivialises the hurt of so many people around the world that is continuing even today.

All it does is empower crackpots and loonies to feel that there are people in authority and power who sympathise with them. I know no-one in this chamber does and we should condemn it immediately, so let's stop for half an hour, suspend standing orders, debate this motion, censure the minister, heal the wound, apologise to South Australia's Jewish community for the hurt they have suffered and move on and get back to the FOI bill, the electoral amendment bill and the people's business whole again.

The SPEAKER: I accept the motion insofar as it is a motion that standing orders be so far suspended as to enable the member for West Torrens to move a motion forthwith. Is that seconded?

Honourable members: Yes, sir.

The house divided on the motion:

Ayes 19

Noes 23

Majority 4

AYES
Bedford, F.E. Bettison, Z.L. Bignell, L.W.K.
Boyer, B.I. Brock, G.G. Brown, M.E.
Close, S.E. Cook, N.F. Hildyard, K.A.
Koutsantonis, A. (teller) Malinauskas, P. Michaels, A.
Mullighan, S.C. Odenwalder, L.K. Piccolo, A.
Picton, C.J. Stinson, J.M. Szakacs, J.K.
Wortley, D.
NOES
Basham, D.K.B. Chapman, V.A. Cowdrey, M.J.
Cregan, D. Ellis, F.J. Gardner, J.A.W.
Harvey, R.M. (teller) Knoll, S.K. Luethen, P.
Marshall, S.S. McBride, N. Murray, S.
Patterson, S.J.R. Pederick, A.S. Pisoni, D.G.
Power, C. Sanderson, R. Speirs, D.J.
Tarzia, V.A. Treloar, P.A. van Holst Pellekaan, D.C.
Whetstone, T.J. Wingard, C.L.

Motion thus negatived.

The SPEAKER: There being 19 votes in favour and 23 against, the motion lapses.

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