Election of the Speaker of the House of Representatives

Mr HAWKE (Mitchell—Manager of Opposition Business) (11:58): Thank you, Speaker. I knew that you would give me the call to give this speech. I had an instinct that you might! Given that we're going to have the most tense relationship of the coming term, I thought this would be a chance to say something very briefly. You know the Leader of the House's opinion of you, but I did want to congratulate you and welcome your ascension to the chair as Speaker of this House. You have been an authentic believer and defender of our democratic traditions, especially the Westminster traditions.

Given the nature of this parliament, none of us have lived through a parliament to this time where the government has had such a majority, and I think the rights of minorities are going to be especially important in relation to the operation of this House. The reason you have so much support from the crossbench and the opposition is that you have been an ardent defender of the procedures, conventions and standing orders, and we welcome that for the coming term. Indeed, in the Australian, I noticed that you were lauded for your performance in the previous term, having, I think, managed to achieve the feat of simultaneously removing fewer members than any other Speaker in the last 30 years and yet removing more government members than any other Speaker in some time! I want to point out that, with the changed composition of the parliament and having run the numbers, your average is about 3.63—one government member every three sessions. You'll need to increase that strike rate to one government member every 2.88 sessions if you want to keep your strike rate up! I want to put that on the radar upfront.

We welcome your ascension to speaker. You do a great job for this parliament. Convention is very important, and, indeed, the quality of debate and legislation is more important when you have a majority government. So we look forward to working with you to make sure that, in this parliament, every single individual voice is heard and that all parliamentarians have the opportunity to ensure that not only the 8½ million Australian people that voted for the government but also the seven million people that did not vote for the government are heard.