Appointments — Assistant Speaker—Hon David Bennett

I seek leave to move two motions without notice on the appointment of two Assistant Speakers.

💬 SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There appears to be none.

I move, That this House appoint Hon David Bennett as Assistant Speaker until the House adjourns on Thursday, 11 August 2022.

At the start of each Parliament, the House elects a Speaker and appoints a Deputy Speaker and two Assistant Speakers. Because of COVID-19, late last year we added a third Assistant Speaker to the workforce. Today, for various reasons, all three of our Assistant Speakers are unavailable to attend the House. Two will remain so for the rest of the week, so the House needs to fill these gaps so that it can continue to function properly, particularly given that we’ve got a number of committee stages that will be progressed this week where we need those presiding officers. David Bennett is indeed one of our longest-serving members of Parliament, having been elected since 2005, and has gallantly agreed to have his name put forward to be a temporary Assistant Speaker.

Well, it gives me great pleasure to speak to the motion moved by the Leader of the House. The Hon David Bennett is a long-serving member of this House, first elected in 2005. He served as Minister for Racing, and Food Safety, and Veterans’ Affairs in the past, and had associate roles in immigration and transport. But I think it’s in the area of the chairing of select committees that Mr Bennett has really made his mark on this House, particularly through the chairing of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I had the privilege of serving with Mr Bennett at that time, as did the Hon Grant Robertson, and he had to deal with the Hon Grant Robertson, the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, in fine fettle at the time. The Rt Hon—

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Always—always.

—as always—Winston Peters was also on the committee. The leader of the ACT Party, David Seymour, was on the committee, and the leader of the Greens, James Shaw, was on the committee, and he had to deal with Andrew Bayly as well, might I add. So he did an excellent job in chairing that committee, and I’m sure that the skills that he learnt chairing the Finance and Expenditure Committee in that 2014 to 2017 Parliament will come in very handy as he chairs the committee of the whole House in this temporary, albeit august, role.

I’m reminded of Shakespeare, who told us that even a king may pass through the guts of a beggar and come out on the other side. I think the ACT Party is looking forward gleefully to this new experiment in our democracy. We think that David Bennett will make an excellent Assistant Speaker, and, Mr Speaker, after you, sir, we can’t wait to see how he goes.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Motion agreed to.

Assistant Speaker—Greg O’Connor