Source : the age
As she stared down the barrel of an unprecedented two-week expulsion from NSW parliament on Tuesday, Penny Sharpe, leader of the minority Labor government in the upper house, asked plaintively: “At what point does this stop?”
Two days later, her deputy, Transport Minister John Graham, was also booted from the Legislative Council.
For months, Labor has been at loggerheads with opposition and crossbench MPs in the upper house.
But what began as simmering resentment this week exploded into whole-scale rebellion with Labor increasingly losing its grip on an unruly Legislative Council as the two senior ministers were turfed out thanks to an unlikely alliance of MPs from the opposition Coalition, the Greens, and the independent Mark Latham.
The background to the uprising depends on who you ask. Ask a Labor MP, and they will tell you it is about the Greens and the Coalition joining an “unholy alliance” with a vengeful Latham, who is leading them by the nose to pursue “conspiracy theories” against a first-term government.
This week in parliament Premier Chris Minns accused the upper house Coalition of undermining Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane to support Latham, whom he called a “certified lunatic” and a “crazy person”, and Labor MPs have relentlessly attacked the Greens for siding with Latham following a finding that he had vilified independent MP Alex Greenwich in a series of homophobic messages on social media.
Greens MPs, Graham said on Thursday, had failed to “lift a finger” to condemn Latham.
Or, it is a fight about protecting the upper house’s transparency powers against an increasingly secretive and opaque Labor government that has already hobbled the upper house’s ability to compel witnesses to attend public inquiries — after a court challenge by Minns’ chief of staff, James Cullen — and is now seeking to further curtail its influence by refusing to comply with the parliament’s ability to force the production of secret documents. Greens MP Sue Higginson said the crossbench was being “gaslit” and wedged by the government.
“We saw the Minns Labor government offend the powers to summons witnesses to our inquiries. Now we see the Minns Labor government trying to weaken the power of calling for papers,” she said. “It is clear and plain to anyone watching what is happening.”
Either way, the functioning of parliament, and a host of bills the NSW Labor Party wants to pass before election season kicks off in earnest are at risk. So too are the powers of the council, which have helped uncover a string of scandals in NSW, including pork-barrelling under the Berejiklian government, John Barilaro’s trade commissioner imbroglio, and a national outrage over failings in the childcare sector.
Kate Geraghty
But this misses an important personal dynamic to what is happening, and the compelling idiosyncrasies of the Legislative Council itself. The high ceilings, the blood-red interior and the frosted windows of the upper house can make it feel an oddly oppressive place to be, the dining room of a haunted Victorian mansion, and the debate on Graham’s suspension felt, at times, like a glimpse into the world’s most dysfunctional family dinner, as MPs unloaded months of personal animus, trauma and anger.
Latham, who has been on a warpath against Minns since the airing of salacious accusations by his former partner, Nathalie Matthews, last year, noted the reports had happened “on the 18th birthday of my daughter”. “But I am past the red-hot anger I have held for 10 months,” he said on Thursday. “Green Valley boys do not cry; they hit back harder.”
Greens MP Abigail Boyd accused Labor of “grotesquely” using Latham’s dispute with Greenwich for “its own political purposes”. She said Minns’ attempt to define the upper house uprising as being led by Latham was “sexist”, noting the four female Greens MPs “do such a huge amount of work, get such a lot done”, but “apparently one man with one vote is leading the four women around”.
“The government cares about sexism, racism, transphobia and homophobia only when it suits their own political games,” she said.
“Today was half politics, half group therapy session,” one MP said afterwards.
Sharpe and Graham were suspended not for anything they personally did, but for the government’s refusal to hand over documents sought by MPs with a tool known as Standing Order 52, or the “call for papers”. This obscure parliamentary power allows the upper house to compel the government to produce documents on a given subject. It was used frequently and to great effect by Labor while in opposition — MPs often joke about the “Mookhey library” because of the now-treasurer’s forensic application of the power — but, opponents say, Labor is now clamping down on it.
When Sharpe was booted from the chamber, it was the fourth time she had been suspended over the same issue: the government’s refusal to release a statement that Minns made to the NSW Police a decade ago, after his close friend, then NSW Labor Party secretary Jamie Clements, was accused of sexually harassing a young staffer in parliament, which he denied.
Graham went over Labor’s refusal to produce a review into the state’s hate speech laws by retired Supreme Court Judge John Sackar. The review was commissioned by the government after it made changes to hate speech laws against the advice of the Law Reform Commission following a series of antisemitic attacks in Sydney. Though it was not commissioned as a document for cabinet, the government says it cannot yet release it because it is under “active” consideration by cabinet.
But opposing MPs say it is being hidden to avoid informed public debate over legislation currently before the parliament. Coalition deputy leader Natalie Ward said the review was being hidden because it was “unhelpful to the Ho Chi Minns media cycle”. The government would rather have MPs kicked out of parliament rather than release the documents “so long as it protects Chairman Minns”.
Labor says MPs are abusing their powers and upending democratic norms by exiling elected members. Housing Minister Rose Jackson said during the debate over Graham’s expulsion on Thursday that MPs were “normalising” a provision Labor used sparingly in its long years in opposition. Labor also rails against the opposition’s use of so-called “poison pill” amendments in some government bills.
Daniel Mookhey said arguing the government could “avoid its fate” by releasing documents it insists should remain secret was disingenuous. “Another way of saying it is that if one does not resist, the noose is not as tight,” he said.
The Coalition began inserting the so-called “poison pill” amendment, which would restore the legislative council’s ability to compel witnesses, into government bills as a form of protest.
The government has remained steadfast in not bowing to the council’s demands, and it has left open the possibility of a challenge in the Supreme Court. During the debate, Graham said that, if misused, the upper house’s powers could be “at stake”.
“If taken too far, they risk being challenged, or judged against in the court system,” he said.
For now, neither side is backing down. As Graham walked from the chamber after a long and tense debate to cheers of “bye, bye” from the opposition on Thursday afternoon, one MP shouted: “Who’s next?”
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
