A parliamentary speech that actually says something
I am old enough to remember the times when speeches in parliament actually meant something. I even learned shorthand so I could write down and then report what MPs said back in those days because there were no transcripts issued in advance. Reporting what was said was an indication of what was meant, what a member actually believed. Alas, no more. Parliamentary speeches these days are a repetition of prepared and sanitised arguments. Why bother to report such a boring parliamentary debate? So what a delight it was to an old fellow yesterday when the Labor MP for Fremantle, Melissa Parke, actually had the courage to break the shackles of party orthodoxy on the question of military intervention in the Middle East and combating terrorsim at home. Ms PARKE (Fremantle) (18:24): Last week on Twitter a person called for my execution for treason because I had questioned the government’s rapid escalation of our new involvement in Iraq from a purely humanitarian mission to one where we app