Mr O’Connor first ran into trouble when it emerged that his appointment, together with those of two colleagues, had been made by the Governor-General at the suggestion of the Executive Council, but without the President’s prior knowledge! Needless to say, this has never happened again and will surely never happen in future.
This incident also prompted a move to ensure consistency with House of Lords’ practice, with the Clerk of the Legislative Council being designated the ‘Clerk of the Parliaments’.
Mr O’Connor next ran into difficulties when, in an occurrence not usually associated with Clerks, he was the subject of debate in the House. In January 1860, a member of the Legislative Assembly moved that an Address be sent to the Governor to require that the additional sum of £100 be made available to make the salary of the Clerk of the Council equivalent to that of the Clerk of the Assembly, as Mr O’Connor had unknowingly been compelled to take a reduction in salary on his appointment to the Council.
It emerged that, as a means of causing annoyance to the Council, the Assembly had amended the Appropriation Bills to reduce the salary of the Council Clerk, knowing that the Council’s ability to retaliate was limited. The Assembly’s attempts to aggravate the Council in this way can be understood within the broader context of the tussle between the two Houses that dominated much of the parliamentary discourse of the time.
The Clerk’s remuneration, and even that of the President, was the subject of amendments moved by the Council to the Appropriation Bills, a ministerial statement, and further inquiries of the Standing Orders Committee, but to little effect. The feud was further evidenced in the introduction of bills to remedy the matter in the Council, and bills to counter those measures in the Assembly. It is not known when the issue was finally resolved.
However, like all Clerks, Mr O’Connor rose above the politics of the House and was recognised by members as ‘a depository of that peculiar learning in parliamentary law’ who left a valuable and enduring legacy, including authorship of the first Parliamentary Handbook on the rules for members.
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