Parliamentary speakers go back a long way, to the appointment of Sir Thomas Hungerford as Speaker of the English House of Commons in 1377. The speaker had to ensure that the House did its job, and the king had several early speakers beheaded when the parliament became disfunctional and the taxes failed to flow.
In the 19th century, parliaments of the Australian colonies also relied upon effective speakers. A Sydney Morning Herald opinion article from 1867 paints a picture of mayhem in the NSW Parliament, which it effectively puts down to the speaker's lack of control over the house.
If the house is to remain supine and the speaker powerless, while a small knot of shameless railers degrade and pervert our parliamentary system, an appeal to the constituencies is still open. I invoke their respect for order — their reverence for justice — their instinctive love of fair play. It is for the electors of New South Wales to ... rid the House of men who disgrace it.
There are obvious parallels with Federal Parliament today, and the writer would probably argue that Tony Abbott should be granted his wish of an early election. It does suggest that whatever role Prime Minister Julia Gillard played in last week's switch of speaker — labelled a masterstroke by some commentators — it could backfire.
If the new speaker Peter Slipper fails to command authority, it's more likely the public will want to see an early poll.
Slipper will have no authority if parliamentarians do not grant it to him. Opposition MPs do not respect him because of his history of disloyalty and questionable behaviour. He will never have their hearts and minds. For them, the appointment is nothing but another of Labor's dirty tricks.
Politicians first started to accuse each other of trickery during the Howard era, and it has now become a staple of modern politics. This is surely what Socrates was referring to when he distinguished the smoke and mirrors of sophistry from the depth of knowledge that he saw as the hallmark of the statesman. We would probably refer to this as 'policy substance'.
Like authority, statesmanship is a status that cannot be granted by a higher power or oneself. It is recognised by its subjects, although often not until after he or she has lost an election to a populist politician.
Invariably statesmen rise above party politics and tend to take the long view of what