New Maitland MP Jenny Aitchison has been kicked out of Parliament twice in her first two weeks on the job, in what could be a record for a first-term NSW MP.
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And what’s more, she says she has no intention of changing her tactics any time soon.
Ms Aitchison was first shown the parliamentary referee’s red card on May 14 after she interrupted Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian and Health Minister Jillian Skinner.
She was booted out again on Tuesday for interjecting during debate about the government’s plans to lease the state’s poles and wires.
“They just want us to roll over and play dead,” Ms Aitchison told the Mercury.
“They want us to vote with them just because they have the majority, but that’s not how a democracy works.
“Getting kicked out highlights the inequity in this government’s approach.”
Records show that Ms Aitchison is the only new MP to have been ejected twice since Parliament resumed earlier this month.
She has accused government ministers of baiting opposition MPs so that Speaker of the House Shelley Hancock could remove them from the chamber.
Cessnock MP Clayton Barr and Port Stephens MP Kate Washington have each been kicked out once so far this term.
But Parliamentary Secretary for the Hunter and Central Coast Scot MacDonald warned that the Hunter MPs would go “missing in action” if they kept getting themselves kicked out of the chamber.
He compared them to naughty school children who had to be sent from the classroom.
“Members of Parliament can’t do their job outside the chamber,” Mr MacDonald said.
“The Speaker has ejected three Labor members four times this month.
“That means they can’t ask Ministers further questions and can’t participate in the debate.
“Effectively these members are squandering the time given to them.”
But Ms Aitchison said she had not missed a Parliamentary vote yet.
“You usually get kicked out until the end of question time, but then you get to go back in,” she said.
