Thursday, 16 November 2023

 The PRESIDENT (09:34): I understand and 100 per cent appreciate that some people are aggrieved they did not get to do their adjournments last night. I think that via the house we might have a way to make that up together, with leave of course. But I want to say a few things. I am loath to make big speeches in this position, because I did not like it when other Presidents did it in previous times, but I will say a few things.

Any political party that supports people in this chamber – any of them – has the logistics and the capability to fill this gallery every day, and they can come in here and they can cheer us or they can boo people that say opposing things. But I am not going to cop it, because this place is for contesting opinions and people get elected to do that here. I am not going to cop it, and that is why I walked out yesterday.

I have a couple of other options available to me. I can call for the gallery to be cleared when banners and booing and audience participation happen here. I have got to say it is not me physically clearing that gallery, it is our colleagues. They are the people we walk in and say ‘G’day, how are you going?’ to every morning. They are the attendants, security, the Usher of the Black Rod, the people that say, ‘How about that football team?’ They are our work colleagues. They are our colleagues. I have been around a while, and I understand some activists – they could be any political activist. The next step is that we are going to have one of our friends accused of treating someone very poorly or in an adverse physical way, and then we are going to have one of our work colleagues all over social media that is saying what an evil person they are for treating that person that way.

So I am not going to cop it. I do not know all the answers. I apologise to the people that missed out on their democratic right to do certain things yesterday. But once again – I have said it a number of times ‍– I flagged to the chamber weeks ago that I will just walk out and people will have to convince me to come back. That is the position I am going to take while I am your President. That may change, but while I am your President, that is the position I am going to take.