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:
“Good as is discourse, silence is better, and shames it. The length of the discourse indicates the distance of thought betwixt the speaker and the hearer. If they were at a perfect understanding in any part, no words would be necessary thereon. If at one in all parts, no words would be suffered.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“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)