Speaker
As speaker, he earned widespread attention for his colourful style of regulating parliamentary debate. His desire to reform parliament led him to insist on the Rann government holding a Constitutional Convention held in 2003, and as an outcome organised eventually failed attempts at bills for optional preferential voting, citizen-initiated referendums and four-year Upper House terms.
Lewis in 2002 faced media scrutiny over his links to businessman Terry Stephens. Lewis was exonerated of any wrongdoing despite submitting himself to extensive police investigations. Stephens was later convicted of lying to smear Lewis.
In 2005 Lewis faced a potential no-confidence motion after he and two staffers alleged a sitting MP was a pedophile, on the basis of a questionable identification from a convicted pedophile. Before a vote could be taken he resigned on 4 April 2005. In 2008 the two staffers, Barry Standfield and Wendy Utting, were found not guilty of defamation over the claims.
Read more about this topic: Peter Lewis (politician)
Famous quotes containing the word speaker:
“I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of today. This is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The speaker in this case
is a middle-aged witch, me
tangled on my two great arms,
my face in a book
and my mouth wide,
ready to tell you a story or two.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“After my death I wish no other herald,
No other speaker of my living actions
To keep mine honor from corruption,
But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)