Legal advice paves the way for pairing

It is not unconstitutional for the speaker of the lower house to be paired with an
MP from an opposing party, the commonwealth solicitor-general says.
The government asked Stephen Gageler, SC, for legal advice on changes to the
speaker's role after the coalition raised concerns about the proposal's validity.
The solicitor-general has found there's no "constitutional impediment" to the
pairing arrangement for votes - subject to two provisos.
First, that it doesn't result in the speaker having a deliberative vote, and second,
that the pairing with a member of the opposing party is voluntary.
Pairing occurs when members with opposing views agree not to vote - effectively
cancelling each other out.
"If those constraints are observed, I consider there to be no necessary
constitutional impediment to a pairing arrangement between the speaker of the House
of Representatives and another member from an opposing political party if that
arrangement has a fixed operation irrespective of any particular vote," Mr Gageler
writes in his advice to the government.
The opposition's legal affairs spokesman, George Brandis, argues that allowing the
speaker to have a pair "would, in effect, be to treat the speaker's casting vote,
proleptically, as if it were a deliberative vote".
That would be a "plain violation" of section 40 of the constitution, he wrote in
advice to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott released earlier on Wednesday.
But Mr Gageler says that's not the case.
Pairing would simply involve an opposing member choosing not to vote.
"The arrangement, in substance and effect, would involve nothing more than the other
member choosing not to exercise that member's constitutional entitlement to cast a
deliberative vote and to maintain that choice without regard to the question for
determination," the solicitor-general writes.