Could the press gallery please score Bronwyn Bishop?

Much of the time, the public can make up its own mind on public events once it get a decent helping of facts; the theatre commentary from the parliamentary press gallery – a little of which I used to write – is more entertainment than vital input.

But on the running of the parliament, the press gallery really does have something to offer. The gallery watches parliament day after day. If the speaker is doing a bad job, the gallery is uniquely placed to say so.

So it’s surprising that there’s been so little judgment of Bronwyn Bishop’s performance in the speaker’s role. I would really like to know more about how she’s going. I was somewhat surprised to turn on the TV late one night and see her telling Tanya Plibersek to withdraw the remark “if the number is zero, just say it”. But maybe that was an aberration. I’m not watching all the time. The gallery is. And yet most of the media is avoiding judgment just at the time when judgment is needed. It’s not just me; Barrie Cassidy remarked on Insiders this week (at the 25:47 mark) on the gallery’s unusual coyness.

Slight diversion: I like Bronwyn. She’s charming and razor-sharp, and I always enjoyed talking with her when I was in the parliamentary building. She also occasionally read my stories when I was a gallery member, a tactic which like many journalists I found endearing. It was a story I wrote about then ATO chief Trevor Boucher that she pursued in a somewhat infamous committee hearing flare-up in 1992. (The story wasn’t prompted by any discussion with her; she simply picked up on it.)

But I always thought Bronwyn’s speakership was going to go one of two ways. She would accept that this was her last gig and try to make it her best gig, extending the examples of the three most recent speakers and being a fairly neutral arbiter, but with the trademark Bishop steeliness that would make her an absolute legend. Or she would remain fiercely partisan and fail, as Labor’s “Leaping” Leo McLeay had done before her. (Contrary to Tony Burke’s claims, the Opposition of the day moved a motion of no confidence in Leo, too, back in 1992; it also failed.)

With Bronwyn, it’s usually black or white.

At time of writing, only two senior journalists have committed their judgments of Bronwyn to print. Both think she’s botched the job.

• Michelle Grattan, The Conversation: “Bishop doesn’t even give the impression of trying to be fair. She hasn’t been able to establish authority in the job – an elusive quality that is bound up not just with fairness but with an ability to know when to be tough and when to be lenient – and when to bring a touch of humour … Bishop is very obvious in favouring the government side and it comes through in her tone – she is often dismissive, sometimes bordering on rude, to Labor MPs, sounding like the cross school mistress.” She would have done better with a ministry.
• Dennis Atkins, Courier-Mail: “She is the most biased occupant of the chair I’ve seen in 33 years of coming to and living in Canberra …” Atkins specifically rates her as worse than Leaping Leo.

Let me know in the comments if I have missed any other judgments from Gallery members. On this one, it’s worth keeping score.

Update 1: Two other gallery commentaries:

• Gabrielle Chan, Guardian: “To the most untrained eye, Bishop is clearly batting for the government, often refusing to hear Labor’s points of order, joining in on government jokes at Labor’s expense and taking the mickey out of the opposition herself. Labor, without the numbers, can do nothing but sit on its hands.” (Hat tip to Zacster – interesting blog there)
• Peter van Onselen, Sunday Mail (Adelaide): The most brutal of them all, and back in November to boot. “Bronwyn Bishop is going to be a hopeless Speaker. Not, of course, if you are a partisan who happens to enjoy the Coalition winning the day in Question Time, for Bishop ensures that happens on an all-too-regular basis. She is hopeless for anyone who thinks a Speaker operating with even just a modicum of independence is good for our parliamentary process … The overtly partisan style she has adopted is unlikely to change. In fact, it will probably harden … I didn’t have much time for the performances of her predecessors Harry Jenkins or Anna Burke during Labor’s time in power but at least they tried to develop non-partisan approaches to rulings … Bishop can’t even keep her snide remarks out of her partisan interventions … a hack who might as well be sitting on the benches behind the Prime Minister.”

Update 2: That link to the motion of no confidence in Leaping Leo back in 1992 has some interesting commentary by then Deputy Opposition Leader Tim Fischer:

McLeay has named eight members who have been suspended.

Let me ask those present in the gallery how fair they might think this is: seven of them were in fact from the coalition and just one was from the Government. That is not a bad ratio. This year we have had another two from our side of the House, so the ratio is nine on this side sent to the sin bin and further and just one on the Government side.

I think there would be an absolute riot at the SCG or the Sydney football ground if there were rulings from a referee in that ratio.

No prediction, sadly, of what would happen at the SCG if there were a 98 to zero record on suspensions.

Update 3:

• Jack Waterford, Canberra Times: The Canberra veteran argues that fairness is not a speaker’s only virtue. “Bishop is in a class of her own for making no pretence of hiding her bias, and for making herself an active participant, and interjector, in debates. Sometimes, however, it is a little unfair that the referee, already playing for one side, makes so free with her power to throw players on the other side out.” But the core of the job is “ensuring the efficient management of the legislative and talking-shop agenda of parliament through the sausage machine. Bronwyn performs admirably … Her sheer feistiness in prosecuting it makes parliament a far more entertaining institution than it has been when someone boring but scrupulously fair-minded has been in charge of proceedings … I cannot think of a debate this semester which was the worse, or less well-informed, simply because Bishop had remorselessly shot every Opposition soldier who had put their head above the parapet.” (Hat tip: Spanky McPhee)