Community & Business
21 May, 2025
Busy time for Speaker Pat
Condamine MP and Speaker of the Queensland Parliament Pat Weir is currently in the United Kingdom representing Australia at a meeting and learning about how unicameral parliaments work in other parts of the world.
While on tour representing Australia at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) in London, Mr Weir also took the opportunity to go on a research mission to Scotland and Wales, which have unicameral parliaments.
He sat through a Welsh Question Time in Cardiff, and a sitting day of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.
While there, he also made a visit to Edinburgh Castle on a transition day, paid for out of his own pocket, rather than the Speaker’s Allowance which has been used for the rest of the trip.
Currently in London, Mr Weir is taking part in a mid-year Executive Committee Meeting of the CPA, a body which assesses how well Commonwealth parliaments are functioning.
Formed in 1911, in the days of the British Empire, the CPA monitors democratic legislatures using a set of 132 indicators, which measure corruption and transparency.
At the request of this body, Queensland’s Parliament undertook a major self-assessment in 2017, which noted that our unicameral system puts us at risk of governments ignoring parliamentary procedures due to lack of push-back.(Famously, Queensland is the only state which does not have an Upper House, with our Legislative Council having been abolished over a century ago).
However, the 2017 self-assessment, taken under then Speaker Peter Wellington, noted that the legacy of the Fitzgerald Inquiry meant that it would not be in the interest of any Government to alter current governance.
Following the London meeting, Mr Weir is due back this Saturday night, and he will return straight back to his day job when Parliament resumes on Monday.
It’s been a busy time in Parliament for our Speaker, who, the ABC reports, has already had to adjudicate on a complaint made to him by the Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie alleging that three Labor MPs had deliberately misled the House.
Mr Bleijie said MPs had falsely claimed that he had not declared that the Sunshine Coast Rail Line would impact his house when he had in fact done so on multiple occasions.
Mr Weir directed that the three MPs, Labor leader Steven Miles, deputy leader Cameron Dick and shadow Minister Grace Grace should be made to face a parliamentary ethics committee over the allegations which have been retracted and apologised for.
