If federal parliament wasn’t already at a low ebb in terms of credibility with the electorate before Tuesday, courtesy of the citizenship debacle, Stephen Parry made sure it got there with behaviour so ridiculous it left even his colleagues bewildered and the Prime Minister fuming. Parry, informed by the Home Office that he had British citizenship, resigned from politics yesterday afternoon, his apparent plot to be rescued from embarrassment by the High Court having been dashed last Friday.
Turnbull made his anger clear in his public remarks in Israel: “I’m disappointed that Senator Parry didn’t make public this issue, this issue some time ago, quite some time ago … he should have reported it much earlier.” Damningly, he said, “I learnt about it probably about the same time you did on Tuesday, yesterday.”
That was the big political sin of the now Mr Parry. No matter how egregiously you screw up, you never leave your leader to be surprised like that.
Parry’s departure, naturally, was the signal for a brawl between the Liberals and the Nationals over who got the choice gig of President. John Williams, who has displayed more dignity, consistency and commitment as senator than most of his colleagues, has put his hand up. But so too has Queensland LNP senator Ian Macdonald.
If the government doesn’t want to reduce the credibility of politics even further, it will make clear to Macdonald he won’t have the gig. Macdonald is partisan and self-centred: he spat the dummy when Tony Abbott didn’t give him a frontbench spot in 2013, he lashed out at the government when it moved to cut back post-political travel entitlements. But he’s most famous for being by far the worst committee chair in the Senate. While every other Coalition committee chair acts with decorum and a degree of non-partisanship, Macdonald’s chairing of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee regularly produces major brawls.
Earlier this year, he tried to throw a senator off a committee and was then humiliated when he was forced to admit he didn’t have the power. Worse, even his Coalition colleagues plainly don’t like the way he carries on. His chairing of Legal and Constitutional Affairs is so antagonistic he even ended up upbraiding George Brandis during hearings last week. And he barged into Linda Reynolds’ Education and Employment Committee to try to instruct her on how it should be run while Michaelia Cash was being grilled by Labor last week, forcing her to tell him to back off.
Macdonald shouldn’t even be in the Senate. The idea of him running it would reduce it to a laughing stock.
Ian MacDonald as President of the Senate, makes Donald Trump look positively “reasonable” as POTUS.
Normally, I’d just laugh an enjoy the insanity.,but these are not “normal” times.
That man even makes Erica look sane and reasonable.
LNP MPs who fancy surviving the next general election, should think about what the punters would make of an orange dinosaur as President of the Senate.
Parry may be one of the few retired Liberal politicians who doesn’t get a well-paid appointment to some government panel or commission.
McDonald would do for the reputation of the Senate what Bronwyn Bishop did for that of the House.
True, but that may not be a bad thing…the bigger the stink, the better their hiding will be at the next election.
Those voters who still can’t see how inept and cankerous the LNP really are, probably need to have someone like Macdonald in front of their noses for a few months at least.
You beat me to it, Leon.
Macdonald as Senate President would be an ideal appointment. He’s an effective representative of many LNP government qualities.
Jesus Christ! Is it possible things are going to continue at this rate? While not attempting to blame Malcolm Turnbull for the sorry state of Parliamentary affairs-unlike Mr Turnbull’s happy largesse at blaming the Labor Party for everything under the sun-never-the-less it is possible the PM in later years will regard his desire for the prime minister-ship to have been sadly misconceived.
Isn’t it time Malcolm Turnbull stopped hiding in Israel in an equally misconceived attempt to bring the state of Israel into the WWI Australian Light Horseman Beersheba event-It might help Mr Turnbull to read the Sykes Picot agreement before launching himself so thoroughly into the Israeli orbit.
Why shouldn’t he be in the Senate? Wasn’t he elected? That decides if he should be there, not an opinionated journo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
Unfortunately, that’s democracy for you.
IOW, we *might*have a better Parliament if Bernard appointed them, than one elected by the populace…
Most people vote for a party rather than an individual, especially in the senate. McDonald is there not because people voted for him, he’s there because he got put on the ticket by the LNP and enough people voted for the LNP to give him a seat.
It should be up to the respective parties to put people on the ticket who have some sort of competency.
As stated by Paul Keating, ‘ the senate is unrepresentative swill’ and McDonald is a prime example of this.
No look up proportional voting. People are voting for a party not a personality (mainly).