The Sketch: the stoically thin blond line between parliament and the abyss

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack in full flight during question time yesterday. Picture: AAP

It was perhaps when Speaker Tony Smith tried stopping a Labor heckle-a-thon against Defence Minister Christopher Pyne that the feel of the year’s penultimate question time was captured.

Where Harry Jenkins could pack the two syllables of “Or-duh!” with the sense of a soul collapsing beneath exasperation’s deadweight, Smith veers delicately betwee­n dry humour and just dry, offering rulings so thorough they feel footnoted.

“The minister will pause for a second,” he said, for Smith is one of the few people who can stop Pyne in full flight. “Members on my left, you’re not going to continue to interje­ct, OK? If you think you’ve made a joke once, don’t make it 10 times. Let’s move on. The minister has the call.”

Full points for style, but even Smith must have felt his soul ­suddenly riven with Jenkins-style fissures as he observed the result: Pyne — uncharacteristically reddeni­ng beneath his follicular waves — crossly declaring, “Labor thinks it’s all very funny”, and a Labor MP replying: “You’re a joke.”

How can an artist work under such conditions?

Nevertheless, Smith slogged stoically on, determined to be a source of both discipline and ­illumination, the thin blond line between parliament and the abyss.

Such as when Clare O’Neil launched another of Labor’s cracks at Assistant Treasurer ­Stuart Robert over his starring role in a banking royal commission-themed Liberal fundraiser.

“The only part of the question that may be in order is his responsibilities as Assistant Treasurer with respect to financial services,” Smith reasoned. “But even in that case, I would make the point that as the Assistant Treasurer, he is not the primary minister. That, in fact, is the Treasurer. He has ­overall responsibilities. If somebody wants to tell me I am wrong on any of that, I am happy to hear.”

(For what it’s worth, here’s Josh Frydenberg on September 3: “Assistant Treasurer the Hon. Stuart Robert MP will have responsibility for financial services …”)

Yet some moments required no speakerly intervention. Such as when Kelly O’Dwyer’s use of the phrase “family-sized businesses” triggered noisy curiosity on the opposition benches.

“What is a family-sized busines­s?” boomed backbencher Joanne Ryan, quizzically holding out her arms in the approximate position they’d be in were she to, say, embrace a compost bin.

O’Dwyer gave no indication whether this was a good guess.

But there’s a time to watch and a time to act. In the latter category was Labor MP Julian Hill, yawning loudly during another of Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack’s gentle despatch box murmurs. As Smith punted Hill from the chamber, McCormack suddenly found his voice and went off like a silver-topped Krakatoa, a reminder that sometimes words do speak louder than actions.