Tough questions for the Speaker
This could get excruciating. Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard has a great deal to explain when he presents himself to Parliament’s governance and administration select committee tomorrow to answer questions about the settlement of a defamation action against him.
There’s more to this than the extent to which taxpayers have wound up putting their money where Mallard’s mouth was. That in itself is no small matter. Last week he made a written apology for comments he made during a radio interview last year, in which he wrongly claimed an accused rapist was working on Parliament’s premises. Defamation actions were launched by a staffer, who had been cleared by a Parliamentary Service investigation that found the accusation of serious sexual assault to have been unfounded.
Given that Mallard made his comments outside the legally protected environment of the parliamentary chamber, he was open to such proceedings, as any other citizen might be. Unlike other citizens, however, his legal and other costs are being met by the taxpayer, to the tune of a reported $333,641.70.
Troubling enough, if this was the extent of the reproach that is now being directed at Mallard. But National’s shadow leader of the House, Chris Bishop, has made clear that the party intends to question him about reports that, in August, while Mallard was facing this lawsuit, he expanded the rules so that not only legal costs, but damages and settlements, could come from the public purse.
This is a very big deal, and Mallard’s future in the Speaker’s role is at stake here. Dismissals – not by the man himself – that the upshot will be nothing more than political theatre of an unedifying sort ring hollow. It will surprise few that National and ACT have already declared their loss of confidence in the Speaker and called for his resignation, but the Government seriously hazards its own standing if it is less than reactive to the moral imperatives here.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said that Mallard ‘‘clearly . . . has made amistake, and he himself is open about that’’. Not open to the extent that he has apologised to Parliament, or directly to the public, however. A letter of apology slipped under the press gallery office door hours before the release of the royal commission report into the March15 terror attack, followed by a resolute nocomment approach, scarcely satisfies any reasonable definition of openness.
Ardern also indulged in the fatuous observation that, since the Speaker serves on behalf of all Parliament, ‘‘therefore his role is independent of us’’. Seriously? The man did not ascend to the Speaker’s chair impelled directly by the hand of God. He was plonked there by the will of the Government which, in case it has momentarily escaped Ardern’s notice, bears a striking resemblance to her own party.
Should Mallard fail to provide an adequate – by which we mean strong – explanation for his actions, sufficient to rehabilitate his standing, then his moral authority in the eyes of the wider public will be shot.
Moreover, Mallard is hardly unassailable in his position. He’s hardly the sort of Trumpian figure who would try to cling to the Speaker’s chair if Labour joined the other parties in declaring its loss of confidence in him. And Labour and the Greens have to be aware that their reactions to his conduct will be seen to speak to their own character.
This is a very big deal, and Mallard’s future in the Speaker’s role is at stake here.