Richard Lord

There was heat in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the wee hours of yes­ter­day when Speak­er Wade Mark and Op­po­si­tion MP Amery Browne clashed over a rul­ing. The events un­fold­ed dur­ing the marathon 14-hour de­bate on a Gov­ern­ment mo­tion to in­crease the 2012 na­tion­al bud­get by $1.5 bil­lion. The mea­sure was ap­proved short­ly be­fore 3.30 am yes­ter­day.

Mark cau­tioned Browne af­ter he made cer­tain re­marks about the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Gov­ern­ment. Mark told Browne it was "very dis­hon­ourable to cast wide on the en­tire Gov­ern­ment bench... I think it is very un­par­lia­men­tary to cast this wide net on the Gov­ern­ment bench by say­ing, 'the en­tire UNC en­gage in com­pre­hen­sive de­ceit.'"

Speak­er Mark said the re­mark was not prop­er or in or­der and asked Browne to with­draw it. Browne prompt­ly said: "Mr Speak­er, I with­draw the ex­pres­sion but I hold up this doc­u­ment." Mark stopped him, say­ing: "Lis­ten, take your seat! Do not query me." Browne at­tempt­ed to re­spond but Mark stopped him again. "No, no, no. I know where you are go­ing. Move on to some oth­er point. And don't show that man­i­festo at this time."

Browne re­spond­ed in loud­er tones: "You can­not tell me..." but was in­ter­rupt­ed by Mark, who re­spond­ed: "Well, you want to dis­con­tin­ue your con­tri­bu­tion? Don't ar­gue with me." Browne in­sist­ed, caus­ing Mark to say: "What? All right, dis­con­tin­ue, take your seat, next speak­er." But it did not end there as Browne per­sist­ed: "Mr Speak­er, you are just some­thing else, you know."

Mark hit back: "Lis­ten, lis­ten, apol­o­gise, no, no, you apol­o­gise to the Speak­er or I will or­der you out of this cham­ber." For the first time in min­utes, there was si­lence in the House which was bro­ken when Browne said: "Mr Speak­er, I seek not to dis­re­spect you in any way, shape or form. You do not know the point I was seek­ing to make. I fol­lowed your in­struc­tion and I with­drew the com­ment that I made be­fore."