Points of Order — Question Time—Information in Minister’s Possession

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to raise a different point of order with you for your consideration. Yesterday I asked a series of questions of the Associate Minister of Education relating to the results of scholarship exams in secondary schools. The Minister gave a series of fairly vague answers. It became apparent after question time that the Minister had planned a press conference at 4 o’clock, after question time, and that he almost certainly had in his possession at question time the information that he used at the press conference. I am raising the question of what obligation the Minister has to use the information that he possesses to answer questions asked in this House. The Minister may prefer to be accountable to the media and not to the House, but the information he had was directly relevant to the questions I asked, the information was available to him, and he did not provide any of that in answers given to the House.

I have checked the Hansard, and the Minister was careful not to mislead the House. I mean that only in the technical sense in which this Parliament uses the term “mislead”. So he did not mislead the House but he had information that he could have used to answer questions that were asked, and that is demonstrated by the amount of information he gave at the press conference, about three-quarters of an hour after question time ended.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 115/4, which I made. I repeat: “While it is eminently good practice for Ministers to make important policy announcements in the House, it is not by any means a convention in New Zealand.”