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Two Labor MPs were suspended from the chamber on Wednesday. Image \/ Pulse<\/p>\nTwo Labor MPs were kicked out of Tasmania\u2019s House of Assembly a short time ago during a question time clash over the future of Bell Bay Aluminium.<\/p>\n
Deputy Labor leader Janie Finlay was suspended until after lunch just after 11:15am, followed within seconds by Lyons MP Brian Mitchell.<\/p>\n
Finlay had asked Premier Jeremy Rockliff when negotiations with Hydro Tasmania would conclude and when he would table the proposal his government had put to Canberra.<\/p>\n
She said businesses in northern Tasmania were relying on the smelter and needed certainty.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to do everything possible to secure those jobs and those supply chains,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Two Labor MPs were suspended from the chamber on Wednesday. Image \/ Pulse<\/p>\n
Rockliff did not answer either question, instead calling on Labor to change its position and \u201cdo a backflip\u201d on advocating to Canberra.<\/p>\n
\u201cI promise you that if you change your position, I won\u2019t put out a media release calling it a backflip, because we will welcome that change in position,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Speaker Jacquie Petrusma twice directed the premier back to the question.<\/p>\n
Rockliff then suggested Finlay had urged people to stop chasing the deal.<\/p>\n
Finlay said those were the words of a former Liberal candidate and asked for a withdrawal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI take personal offence at the disrespect of the premier misquoting me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Petrusma ruled it was a misrepresentation under standing order 127 and told Finlay she could correct the record after question time.<\/p>\n
Petrusma later warned the deputy leader over her interjections.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing in here and shouting and raising your voice is not an appropriate form of action,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Finlay interjected again and was suspended. Mitchell was then removed under standing order 149.<\/p>\n
The Rio Tinto-owned aluminium smelter employs about 550 people and its power contract expires at the end of December.<\/p>\n
The state government has previously said there is a $60 million a year gap between what Rio Tinto wants and what Hydro Tasmania can commercially offer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Labor MPs were kicked out of Tasmania\u2019s House of Assembly a short time ago during a question…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20718],"tags":[12991],"class_list":["post-116462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rio-tinto","tag-rio-tinto"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117205744220866519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}