Video Related To: Tony Abbott

Australia has not had a hung parliament for over half a century. Question time on 31 May 2011 demonstrated that life under a hung parliament can be very different. What happened demonstrates the value of the Westminster system - provided our leaders are not prepared to abuse it. But for the quick action of Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, we could have entered into a period of potential instability, with the possibility that the government could have lost its majority. An opportunist would have encouraged this; a statesman would not and did not. The house was as usual unruly, with numerous noisy interjections. Ao the Speaker Harry Jenkins issued a ''general warning". In reaction to presumably the next interjection, the Speaker ''named'' the opposition Member for Paterson, Bob Baldwin. Following convention, the leader of the house in the government moved that the member's attendance of the house be dispensed with a 24 hours. Where a government has a majority in the house that motion is normally passed. But in this Parliament the government cannot assume that the crossbenchers will vote with them. If the vote is lost, under the Westminster system it is treated as a vote of no confidence in the Speaker. In a famous incident in 1975, the Speaker Jim Cope named a minister in the Whitlam government, Clyde Cameron. When the Prime Minister refused to move the usual motion, Mr Cope realized he had lost the confidence of the House. He resigned immediately and was replaced <b>...</b>