Bread and Butter wrote on Mar 27
th, 2014 at 5:17pm:
Watching Speakers in general has been a tortuous experience as they oscillate between bias and error with some disinterest and slumber to keep up the variety. Jenkins was the best of the most recent batch but hardly stellar. Slipper was an appalling person and so his speakership was tainted before he started and respect is essential to the position and he had none.
Slipper was only perceived as tainted because his own party sought to smear him. As a Speaker he was reasonable. Jenkins was also a decent Speaker.
Quote:I like the idea of an unbiased non-political Speaker but in practice, how do you achieve that? The G-G is also not allowed to be part of a political party but did that stop Bob Hawke from appointing Bill the Policeman to the position? No, he simply resigned from the ALP the day he accepted the position.
The British Parliament has a tradition where a Speaker resigns from their party when they are appointed, and the major parties do not stand candidates in the Speaker's seat.
In the early days of Federal Parliament, the Australian Parliament followed a similar tradition. The first Speaker,
Frederick Holder, was an independent who was often elected unopposed.