Speaker tells PM to shut up and sit down during Parliament question time

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/polit...levant-gillard-speechless-20120228-1u12c.html


Needs to be said to more politicians. The whole thing where they don't answer questions but pretend to needs more speakers to actually do their job.

 

And thats why 80% of Australians dont stand by you Julia.

 

Abbott wants a carbon price, he's admitted it, but he's also said that you can't trust him as he's a liar and that he only opposes policies Labor has because they're Labor policies.

That's not someone you want as PM either.

 

So how's he going to stop the stupid and irrelevant questions? That's what I'd like to know, otherwise his little authority posturing with his robe and bow tie is all pretty redundant. On a one man mission to over haul the culture of the parliament is he? Well, I wish him luck, but I don't have much confidence in him.

 

That's actually his job. The rules of the parliament is that you answer a question or you don't get to speak. Usually though the speaker lets them get away with it.

 

That is generally because a speaker is a member the party in government.

The only reason this is different is because of the hung parliament.

 

The ALP was clever here. They supported an opposition member in his quest to become speaker because the speaker doesn't casts a vote.

 

Certainly.

I think that the best thing about it was that The Liberals thought everything was going well with Slipper.

 

I know what his job is, but he's not going to change parliament on his own and he's certainly not going to stop the opposition asking stupid questions or back benchers throwing dixers to ministers. So he decided to crack down on one particular day on one particular question. This isn't unique, or impressive. It's a bit like when kids get a supply teacher, they test the boundaries and the teacher needs to establish their authority early on otherwise they'll not have any at all. His robe and procession and such have become a bit of a joke in canberra, the house obviously wasn't taking him very seriously, so he stamped his foot, banged his gable, etc. He certainly does not have more control or more discipline than Jenkins did, he's going to have to work long and hard to establish that.

 

Smart enough to be told to sit down & ****.

 

No one should EVER be allowed to tell the PM to sit down and 'shut up'. I don't care if you are a Liberal or a Labor or a Greeny PM, you have the right to say what you want to say, and if the Speaker doesn't like it, tough (*)(*)(*)(*).

 

Better than being voted down in a vote of no confidence which would have been a likely possibility if Jenkins was still speaker.

 

Sorry, the speakers job is to make sure the rules are followed. As far as the constitution is concerned the Prime Minister is just another minister.

They are supposed to answer questions with relevant information, if not it's the speaker's job to remind them to answer the question and if they continue to go off on a tangent to tell them to shut up.

 

The speaker didn't tell the PM to "shut up", he told her to "resume her seat" and then turned of her microphone.

If he'd actually said "sit down and shut up" to the PM he would be in a lot of trouble.

 

True, but we all know that he really meant, "****, you brain dead cow"!