Dinner for the Speaker of the House of Representatives

Madam Speaker, Hon Margaret Wilson, Messrs Speaker - Hon Sir Kerry Burke and Faimeh, Sir Robin Gray, Hon Doug Kidd and Jane, Rt Hon Jonathan Hunt, Hon Clem Simich and Ann, Erstwhile and Doyen Clerk of the House, David McGee and Danielle, Executive Officer (Parliamentary Functions) Beverley Cathcart and Robin; Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is a matter of pleasure for Susan and I to welcome you and thank you for accepting our invitation (and at Sir Peter Tapsell's request) to record his and Diane's good wishes and regret for not being able to be here.  We meet in circumstances to honour the speakership of Hon Margaret Wilson, as she brings to an end in a few months time, a career in Parliament that has seen her as an Opposition Member, a Government Member and Minister of the Crown, and Speaker of the House of Representatives.

We meet in circumstances also that are 18,329 kilometres away from the Mother of Parliaments, the House of Commons at Westminster in London, and some 631 years after Sir Thomas Hungerford first took up the Office known as Speaker in that House in 1377.  This State Dining Room with its Norrie Collection of paintings, is perhaps one of the more preferable venues in which our gathering could have been held anywhere in New Zealand.  I say this because the sovereigns whose paintings are set about the walls, underpin the history, and furnish a background of the Parliaments in whose interests they were served, and of the Speakers who presided over the Parliaments in their time.

Speakers have had a long and chequered history. No fewer than seven of them ended their lives by being beheaded and more than one was either killed or murdered as a result of their time in office. 

I wish to refer to three people whose paintings are on these walls as calling for honourable mention - with the honourable mention arising because of the erstwhile Speakers of the House when they were in power.

Charles I, whose painting is to my immediate right (above the fireplace), sought in 1642 to enter Parliament in order to arrest five Members of Parliament.  When the King asked where they were, the Speaker, William Lenthall, is said to have replied,

"May it please Your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here."

A wonderful and classic statement by a Speaker, you might all agree, of independence and bravery in the face of somewhat direct pressure.

Charles I, as we know, was later removed from Office by being executed - leading to development of the then new crime of regicide.

William Lenthall, to whom I have made reference, remained as Speaker of what became known as the "Rump Parliament" which was forcibly dissolved by Oliver Cromwell, whose painting is to my left (to the right of the door).  Cromwell, in a famous speech, commanded the Speaker to leave the Chair, and told the Members of Parliament that they had sat long enough. He said,

"You are no longer a Parliament, I say you are no Parliament."

He told Sir Henry Vane that he was a Jugler; Henry Martin and Sir Peter Wentworth, that they were Whoremasters, Thomas Chaloner that he was a Drunkard, and Allen Goldsmith that he cheated the Publick.  He then bid one of his soldiers to take away what he called the Fool's Bauble (the mace) and Thomas Harrison pulled the Speaker off the Chair and the incident ended, as it is put, "Cromwell having turned them all out of the House, lock'd up the Doors and returned to Whitehall."

There then occurred a phase in Cromwell's time when Parliament became a subject of ridicule after being reconstituted and known as the "Barebone's Parliament".  This was referred to by a news writer as a group of,

"Pettifoggers, Innkeepers, Millwrights, Stockingmongers and such a rabble as never had hopes to be of a Grand Jury". 

As we also know, Cromwell himself did not last, although interestingly enough, Sir William Lenthall did, and when the Monarchy was restored and Charles II assumed the Throne (Charles II being to my right above the door on this side) for the first two years of his reign, Sir William Lenthall remained as Speaker. 

The way in which Members of Parliament, encouraged by Speakers, can resolve matters of the past, if they are not to their liking, is exemplified by recalling that the new Parliament in 1660 declared that Charles II had been King since the death of Charles I in 1649!  Oddly enough, Lenthall who appears to have sailed on under every political wind available, wanted his epitaph to read "Vermis sum" - I am a worm "acknowledging myself to be unworthy of the least outward regard in the world.."

All of these years later, and in another setting of our country New Zealand, though the contribution of Parliament is not amidst the huge upheavals to which I have made reference, the work undertaken by Parliaments and their Members and as superintended by the Speakers of the day, are no less important. 

It is a matter of duty, respect and pride for Susan and I to acknowledge your company this evening, and not at all least, to acknowledge you, Margaret Wilson and what you have achieved.  Can I invite you now to relax and enjoy a pleasant dinner which will be followed, after we have eaten, by one, two, or more of you, as takes your will, to address our gathering.

For the moment may I close by asking everyone to join me in a toast to Her Majesty the Queen of New Zealand.