Tony Abbott jeered, Speaker Bronwyn Bishop cheered as 'Hogwarts' Parliament gets underway

Updated

Veteran Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop has pledged to be "impartial" in her new role as Speaker of the 44th Parliament.

More than two months after the federal election, MPs and senators have been sworn in and the new Parliament officially opened.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who nominated Mrs Bishop to the Speaker's chair, prompted the first jeer from Opposition benches by saying that "this chamber should always be a place of spirited debate, but it should never be a place where motives are impugned or characters assassinated".

The Opposition put up its own nominee for Speaker, Member for McEwen Rob Mitchell, but lost the first vote of the new Parliament along party lines.

Labor has protested against Mrs Bishop's intention to still attend party room meetings while in the Speaker's role.

Manager of Opposition Business Tony Burke said the elevation was "reminiscent of the Harry Potter novel" in which the villainous Dolores Umbridge is made headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"When they all return to Hogwarts, Dumbledore is gone and Dolores Umbridge is now in charge of the school," he said.

But the new Speaker, who has been in Parliament for 26 years, insists the Opposition need not worry.

"I mean to be impartial," she told Parliament.

"The comments that I have made about attending party meetings is simply that I am a Liberal - but we don't deal with tactics and I wouldn't be part of that.

"But in this chair, I will act impartially. That is the responsibility that goes back to 1377."

Following centuries-old Westminster custom, Mrs Bishop "resisted" as she was escorted or dragged to the chair by the Prime Minister and Leader of the House, Christopher Pyne.

Mrs Bishop said she cared "passionately" for the traditions of Parliament and asked members to call her "Madame Speaker".

The predecessor in the role - Labor's Anna Burke - declined that honorific, preferring simply "speaker".

"I wish to express my grateful thanks for the high honour that has been bestowed on me by the House," Mrs Bishop said.

During the nomination process, Labor backbencher Graham Perrett criticised Mrs Bishop over the way she "treated the sisterhood" by standing alongside protesters holding placards calling Julia Gillard a "witch" and "Bob Brown's bitch".

"There is a saying that the head slave whips the hardest," he said.

"Let's look at how the Member for McKellar has treated the sisterhood when given the opportunity.

"Did she apologise for that? Never. Never apologised for that."

In response, the new Speaker - the first woman from Coalition ranks to hold the position - repeated her stance that women should be appointed on merit.

"I have never, ever put myself forward other than to say I am the best person for the job," she said.

Mr Abbott's admiration for the Member for Mackellar is longstanding; he once described himself as the "ideological love-child of John Howard and Bronwyn Bishop".

"She is a formidable character," the Prime Minister said, speaking to Parliament for the first time in that role.

"I can think of no-one more likely to deal with all of the other formidable characters in this place without fear or favour.

"Bronwyn can do what is necessary to maintain control of what is sometimes an unruly house."

Mrs Bishop entered Parliament as a senator in 1987 and switched to the Lower House in a by-election for the Sydney seat of Mackellar in 1994.

She served in the Howard government as minister for defence industry, science and personnel and as aged care minister between 1998 and 2001.

Although once touted as a future prime minister, Mrs Bishop's time handling the aged care portfolio was tainted by scandal, after residents of a Melbourne nursing home were bathed in kerosene in 2000.

She has pledged to keep order in the House, which she described as a "strong and robust place of debate".

"It is not a classroom, it is not a polite debating society. It is a place where we fight for ideas," she said.

"The width of that table is symbolic in that we don't use weapons and we don't use either swords or fisticuffs.

"We do use words and sometimes we use them harshly and we have standing orders that apply to that."

Fights for ideas are already brewing between the major parties over the Government's plan to increase the debt limit and repeal the carbon pricing scheme.

The Government has accused Labor of playing politics with the economy by deciding to block a $200 billion increase to the nation's debt limit.

Three weeks ago Treasurer Joe Hockey revealed the current debt ceiling of $300 billion would be hit on December 12 and that the Government would raise the limit to $500 billion.

But the Opposition says it will not support the boost without seeing updated budget figures.

"Joe Hockey wants Australia's biggest ever no-doc loan, and the Labor Party will not facilitate it," Opposition treasury spokesman Chris Bowen said.

"We recognise that an increase in the debt limit is justified, but an increase of $200 billion is simply not justified without Joe Hockey releasing his mini-budget.

"So when Joe Hockey moves the increase in the debt cap in the House of Representatives, we will move an amendment to only authorise an increase to $400 billion."

But Mr Abbott says the Government needs a new debt limit of $500 billion to put "Labor's debt legacy" in the past.

"The Treasury advice is that based on the mess we have inherited from Labor, that gross debt will peak significantly in excess of $400 billion," he said.

"If the Labor Party and Opposition members want to put their shameful fiscal history behind them, the best thing they can do is allow this legislation to pass, deal with Labor's debt legacy, and let the repair squad get in and fix Labor's mess."

The Greens have indicated they will also vote against the increase in the Senate, a move which would kill it off until the Upper House changeover next July.

"We are not inclined to support the Government's increase, we can see some sense in what Labor is proposing," Greens MP Adam Bandt said.

"It's up to the Government to justify why it wants to go as high as it wants to go.

"In default of a satisfactory explanation from the Government, then Labor's position seems to make a lot of sense."

When he announced the changes, Mr Hockey would only say that recent trends indicated that net debt would "exceed $400 billion".

He said he would not give any more details ahead of the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) due to be delivered before Christmas.

This morning new MP Clive Palmer said he would abstain from any vote on the debt ceiling, saying: "I don't think that sort of motion really addresses the problem."

"Before the election, the Liberal Party said we've got to cut our debt and bring our debt down. The first thing that happens after the election is Joe Hockey increases the debt ceiling by another $100 billion," he said.

"While we have to raise our debt ceiling because of the precarious position of the economy, and we've got to think about the people that need to be supported in our society that are less fortunate than ourselves, we shouldn't be in that position.

"The Government has policy options available to it which wouldn't require us to do that."

But the day has been dominated by pomp and ceremony, beginning with a Welcome to Country ceremony which was shifted to Parliament's Great Hall because of wet weather.

Ngambri elder Matilda House gave the Prime Minister a "fighting boomerang", telling Mr Abbott "it's good for hunting".

Tomorrow, MPs will return to Parliament for the expected tabling of legislation to repeal the carbon pricing scheme and the first Question Time.

Topics: federal-parliament, federal-government, business-economics-and-finance, government-and-politics, australia

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