Speaker’s Rulings — Members’ Speeches—Termination

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Before my colleague Brian Connell leads off the debate for the National Party, I seek a point of clarification. Earlier during this session I sought a ruling from you as to whether a member’s speech was terminated at the point that the member resumed his or her seat. You said that you would come back to me on that. I am not asking you for that ruling now. I just wondered in what time frame we can expect the ruling to be made.

I am ready to give an answer on the issue of when a member’s speech terminates. It is correct that when a member resumes his or her seat the speech is terminated. Although that should be obvious it cannot cover all cases, because members may indeed resume their seat, while speaking, for a whole lot of other reasons. They may get cramp or something like that. For our purposes at the moment, the member is quite correct that when members resume their seat their speech is ended, but it is very much up to the Speaker to make a decision.