The Australian, 25 November 2011
There’s a bit of argy-bargy about whether Harry took a voluntary pay cut because he couldn’t stand listening to Christopher Pyne any more or he was pushed because an extra vote on the floor might come in handy if The Honourable Member For Denison starts being a stickler for the dictionary definition of “mandatory” next year.
Look, they’re both plausible. $70000-odd per annum doesn’t seem that much to pay to be allowed to stick your fingers in your ears like everyone else when the Honourable Member For Points Of Order whines “point of order” for the tenth time in the afternoon, but going from Speaker to Speak-When-Spoken-To on the backbench would be a bit of a wrench.
Whatever the reasons (let’s just say “politics” and leave it at that) Andrew Wilkie has been assured that “nothing has changed” in relation to his pokies deal with the government. Whether that means it’s full steam ahead or they were always intending to wriggle out of it if at all possible remains to be seen.