SUSPENSION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1336, 13 January 1912, Page 5

SUSPENSION.

« HEAD OF N.S.W. HANSARD. dispute wrrn the speaker. Or reletrttDh—Press association—Copyrlehl (Bee. January 12, 10.30 p.m.) Sydney, January 12. A large mass of correspondence was submitted to tho Koval Commission of Inquiry into tho disputo between tho Speaker (Mr. Willis) and Mr. liobiusou (bead of Ilansard). In the courso of a lengthy statement Mr. Willis said Mr. Robinson had been in tho habit of controlling previous Speakers, and members objected to him I exercising authority over tho Speaker. Mr. Robinson's suspension rested upon his insubordination in not carrying out instructions, in writing letters derogatory belittling, and disrespectful to the head of his Department. Mr. Eohinson read a long reply claiming that ho had not flouted tho Speaker but had implicitly obeyed all his instructions. ORIGIN OF THE TROUBLE. In an article on January 5 the Sydney "Daily Telegraph" states:— Mr. Speaker Willis yesterday gave the public an up-to-date account, from liis own point oi view, of the incidents leading up to tho suspension by himself of tho chief of the Hansard staff, 'Mr. Charles Robinson. With a calm disregard of the facts, he asserts at the outset of his "plain explanation" tliat in Juno last the Assembly, at his instance, "severely censured" Mr. Robinson, and leaves it to be inferred that "Mr. Wade, Mr. M'Court (ex-Speaker), Mr. Levy, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Dacey, Mr. Neilsen, and many other members" acquiesced .in that censure., The "plain" facts, on the contrary, are that the Assembly did not censure Mr. Robinson. It defeated Mr. Willis's motion to that end by 1-i votes to 21. And the gravamen of the case, in the minds of Inany of those who voted with Mr. Willis on the occasion, was not that it was "highly improper" for tho chief of the Hansard staff to answer comments of a member of Parliament in the way Mr. Robinson had answered Mr. Willis's complaints, but that the Acting-Premier should have seen fit to ■ lay the correspondence on the tablo of the Eouso. Their protest was. not against what Mr. Robinson did, but what Mr. Holman did. Mr. Willis had accused Hansard of presenting a "garbled" report of something ho had said, and his charge had been incorporated in tho filial report out of fairness to him. In a'lengthy explanation to Mr. Speaker Cann of the system of Parliamentary reporting, Mr. Robinson had, no doabt with some spirit, resented tho offensive imputation that he or his staff had "garbled" anything. What Mr. Wade, whoso support Mr. Willis claims, thought of the matter may be judged from this extract from his speech"lf that document (Mr. Robinson's letter) was meant for the eye of Mr. Speaker alone, it might be all right, being confidential; but in putting on the table a document of that kind, dealing with so many diverse matters, and containing reflections on. Hon. members as a body, I say that, although the Principal Shorthand Writer is not so much to blame, certainly blame rests upoh the Minister who launched it upon the public." -Mr. M'Court's view was that while there had undoubtedly been a breach of privilege the motion should be withdrawn and all reference to the proceedings expunged from the records of Parliament. Mr. Holman described the wholo affair as a storm in a tea-cup, and challenged hon. members to show that there was anything in tho correspondence that could be. construed into 'an improper reflection on the member for tho Upper Hunter, or any other hon. member. ■ Nevertheless, that is the affair which Mr. Willis claims gavo .him warrant for altering, tho system- of Parliamentary reporting that had "one on uninterruptedly and successfully for over thirty ye/rs under tho control of the samo trusted chief. In tho mass of correspondence and talk that has gone* on, few specific examples of the kind of reporting that Mr. Willis demands in place of that previously in vfcgue have been iriven. One of the few is that wherein he demanded tho excision from the report of the fact that the member for Waverlo.v when asked to withdraw the • word "vindictive" did so before he was ejected from tho Houso for the offence of refusing to withdraw. Another is the Speaker's desire to exclude from a certain speech by Mr. Fitzp:itrick portion of a quotation from Mr. Willis's speech in the Upper Hunter electorate, wherein he charged the Ojrtosition with "organising a band of ruffians," and "turning Parliament into a bawdy house."