Speaker of The House
Following the National Party's successes in the 2008 election, Members of Parliament unanimously elected Smith as Speaker of the House. Smith has taken a rather different approach from his predecessor, being more active in requiring ministers to provide answers to oral questions. Smith was re-elected as Speaker of the House again on 20 December 2011.
Smith is expected to retire from Parliament and to be appointed High Commissioner from New Zealand to the United Kingdom later in 2012
Read more about this topic: Lockwood Smith
Famous quotes containing the words speaker and/or house:
“The most attractive sentences are, perhaps, not the wisest, but the surest and roundest. They are spoken firmly and conclusively, as if the speaker had a right to know what he says, and if not wise, they have at least been well learned.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The shifting islands! who would not be willing that his house should be undermined by such a foe! The inhabitant of an island can tell what currents formed the land which he cultivates; and his earth is still being created or destroyed. There before his door, perchance, still empties the stream which brought down the material of his farm ages before, and is still bringing it down or washing it away,—the graceful, gentle robber!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)