Ex­press­ing shock at what un­fold­ed dur­ing Fri­day evening’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee, a par­lia­men­tary ex­pert with vast ex­pe­ri­ence in par­lia­men­tary ad­min­is­tra­tion de­scribed the in­ci­dent as un­prece­dent­ed and mount­ed a vig­or­ous de­fence of par­lia­men­tary staff, ar­gu­ing that the con­tro­ver­sy ap­peared to stem from a mis­un­der­stand­ing of how the cham­ber’s au­dio sys­tem func­tions.

The ex­pert al­so called on the House Speak­er to make a state­ment on the mat­ter and re­as­sure par­lia­men­tary staff.

Fri­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing erupt­ed short­ly be­fore 10 pm when Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath ac­cused par­lia­men­tary broad­cast­ing per­son­nel of show­ing bias by mut­ing the mi­cro­phones of Gov­ern­ment MPs and al­leged­ly main­tain­ing high­er au­dio lev­els for Op­po­si­tion MPs.