Parliament’s grubby week: it’s all about them
Grumpy old men, racists, corrupt officials and veiled digs at family members have this week given State Parliament the odium of a house of malcontents.
The new parliament opened a couple of weeks ago in a benign manner with the ceremonial setting of the agenda by the Governor.
What has followed this week is a string of “Address-in-Reply” (AiR)speeches where MPs have taken aim at whatever it is that’s eating away at them.
These AiR speeches are meant to be a considered view of the policy agenda that has been proposed; instead they have been used to thank all and sundry and to tank all and sundry.
In the Upper House on Tuesday night a couple of Labor Party old timers managed to shine a light on the perks of office held by the president of the Legislative Council.
Outgoing council president John Gazzola’s AiR took aim at his party colleague, and new president, Russell Wortley.
He called Wortley a parasite and immediately focused public attention on the amount of money (an extra $100,000) and benefits (cars, staff allowances) that one can get by running a meeting in the red chamber for around 41 days a year.
The slap was later summed up by another Labor MP, Jennifer Rankine, as the work of two “grumpy old men”.
The two grumps, by the away, are on salary packages that together add up to half a million dollars.
Over in the green chamber, the House of Assembly, former Liberal Leader Isobel Redmond was lining up a public servant with an unexplained allegation of being “utterly corrupt”.
You might like
After paying tribute to her electoral office staff, Redmond moved on to the failure of the electoral system and its inability to deliver power to the party that won the most votes.
It was a reference to the Liberals’ issue with not being able to form government, despite a 53-47 share of the vote.
This had happened a few times in the past, she explained, but the 2014 result sat squarely with the Electoral Boundaries Commission.
“They had a job to do and they failed to do it, as is evidenced by the outcome of the election, and I think it was utterly hopeless, and that, combined with the person that I consider to be an utterly corrupt, the electoral commissioner, I think is just a shame for this state.”
Redmond then moved onto matters of policy – but the allegation of commissioner Kay Mousley being “utterly corrupt” remained unexplained.
It’s becoming all too common for MPs to use the protection of parliamentary privilege to muddy reputations. I was personally targeted last year and remain mystified by the unexplained attack.
The war, meanwhile, returned to MP versus MP.
Liberal MP for Unley, David Pisoni, gave Labor’s new MP for Elder Annabel Digance a fiery welcome, declaring her to be a racist.
Referring to the ALP’s decision to distribute a leaflet that appeared to “dog-whistle” about Liberal candidate Carolyn Habib’s name, Pisoni gave Digance both barrels: “The member for Elder needs to come clean. She needs to tell this parliament: what did she know about this campaign?
“I put it to you that she knew about it. She is as racist as the other members of her campaign.
“She knew what she was doing when she put that out.
“She is a racist, and she is in this parliament because of her racist behaviour as the candidate in the lead-up to the election.
“It is a stolen election victory in the seat of Elder, based on the dirty tricks of the Labor Party and a racist campaign.”
Welcome to North Terrace, Annabel.
Stay informed, daily
Back in the Upper House and Liberal member David Ridgway thought he’d not only have a crack at a Labor MP, but he’d also reel in her husband for good measure.
While Labor’s Gail Gago was in full flight, attacking Liberal policies on the automotive industry, Ridgway piped in with this: “Have the minister and her husband supported Australian automotive manufacturing by driving and owning an Australian manufactured and built car?”
Gago’s husband is Peter Gago, the senior winemaker at Penfolds. Just what he has to do with state politics or auto industry policy wasn’t explained by Ridgway – and so he copped it back from Gago.
“It is a shameful, despicable question,” she said.
“It is gutter politics in this place when family members are dragged into these sorts of discussions in this chamber. It is a despicable, cowardly action and it is an absolute disgrace.”
And then came the kicker: “Both my husband and I drive Holdens”.
That would be an “oops” for Ridgway.
Back in the House of Assembly and Labor’s Tom Koutsantonis thought he would devote some time to thanking his party workers and then rub salt into Liberal wounds by “thanking” Rob Lucas, a senior Lib MP, and Geoffrey Greene, the Liberal Party’s state director, for their efforts in running a campaign that failed to deliver government.
Perhaps one day Treasurer Koutsantonis might want to explain how that’s an efficient use of the parliament’s time.
He might also want to ring the man he praised yesterday – ALP party secretary Reggie Martin – and ask why the party website still lists Gazzola as president of the Legislative Council and Chloe Fox as a minister.
The stoushes continued this morning.
Senior Liberal MP Rob Lucas raked over the coals of the Gazzola/Worltey affair before embarking on an attack against one of the Premier’s media staffers.
“On election night at West Adelaide Football Club (where Labor had gathered) one Labor media adviser said to a young female journalist, ‘you shouldn’t be here you f!#*’n bitch’,” Lucas said.
“That behaviour shouldn’t be accepted.”
Despite not having been there himself to witness the alleged incident, Lucas then chose to name the staff member, ensuring the name and the allegation are forever recorded in Hansard.
This has been a very grubby week.
Perhaps the 69 members of the two houses of parliament might want to turn their attention to the issues of debt, jobs and the quality of South Australians lives.
After all, they spent the entire election campaign promising that’s what they would do.
Want to see more stories from InDaily SA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily SA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily SA". That's it.
