Points of Order — Questions for Oral Answer—Corrections to Answers

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance in a matter for which I would like some redress. It concerns an answer given in this House on 25 May by the Hon Pete Hodgson, Minister of Transport. During the course of question No. 7 that day he claimed that the numbers I had used for the amount of money that had been spent on new State highways and local roads in the Auckland area were incorrect—“in error” were his words. Mr Speaker, at the time when I raised it you told me it was a debatable point, but I have to say that any mathematician I have spoken to knows that whether one number is bigger or smaller than another is not debatable. Given that those numbers were provided by the Minister himself in answer to questions for written answer Nos 628 to 632, I then took a breach of privilege case to you, but you have declined to act on it. I now seek your guidance on how I can have this matter corrected, as the figures do show that the amount of money spent on new roading in the last year of the National Government was higher in real dollar terms than the amount spent in any year since that time.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: If a member disputes the accuracy of a question, that is a matter for debate. This issue is still a matter for debate. [Interruption] If I hear any comment like that, the member will leave the Chamber. I rule having taken careful advice on issues, and I make sure I do that.

I seek leave, then, to table both the letters I wrote to you, which include, in great colour, tables and graphs showing that the expenditure was higher in National’s last year in Government.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would ask you to give us a bit of a stronger lead on what we are supposed to do if we know, in fact, that a Minister is dodging the effect of a question by choosing to give information to the House that is patently incorrect. We understand that the only recourse we have is to seek a privilege hearing. But if matters of privilege are going to be thrown away on the basis that they have been brought on a debating point, then, effectively, question time is not worth having.

Let me just say to the member that I inspect every breach of privilege allegation very carefully, and take very careful advice from experts on the subject. I determined that there was no breach. That is where the matter ends.

I want to seek the leave of the House, and let me explain very briefly what it is about. There has been a number of occasions recently—which are becoming more regular—when the answers given by Ministers have been inaccurate. The Standing Orders state that Ministers have to come down at the first possible opportunity and make those corrections to the House. The consequence of that is that the member who asked the question often is not here when the corrected answer is given. As a consequence, I seek leave that we suspend the Standing Orders so that Ministers, when they make any correction to answers that were given incorrectly, give those corrections at the beginning of the next question time.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to suspend the Standing Orders. Is there any objection? There is.