Points of Order — Chamber—Absence of Members

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I wonder whether you could advise the House of either one of two things: first, whether the Government fulfilled its quorum requirements for the House today—I notice the very empty Labour back benches; and, secondly, is there some fire alarm that we have not been told about, or perhaps some caucus alarm that we also have not been told about? It is rather extraordinary that more than half of them are absent.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I assure Mr Gerry Brownlee that it is not a fire alarm; it is called a general election, and those Māori MPs are busy trying to get back some votes.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: I call question No. 2.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think we have an obligation to inform the media on whether they can or cannot take pictures of the fact that the Government back-bench seats are empty. It is no good holding them up for breaking some rule next week if the rule does not apply.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: The media understand the rules, I am sure.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: I am ruling that the rules remain the same.

I am somewhat behind the media and I do not know what the rules are. Please let me know what they are. Can the media take a photograph of the empty Government back benches, or can they not?

I assume the point of order is out of order because he is referring to the absence of members. Otherwise, we would point out that ACT has only four of its nine members present and National has only 16 of its 27—with 11 away. I think you will find the proportions are relatively similar around the House today.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: I think that point has been well canvassed.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think the Minister might like to look at the numbers—29 present out of 51 or 52 goes way over the required leave allowance for the Labour Party. Even a dim light like me can see that that is the case. What about some explanation? Where are these people? If they are out there campaigning now, let us all go. If an election date has been declared, tell us what—

💬 Madam SPEAKER: Please sit down, Mr Brownlee. That is not a valid point of order. We will now proceed to question No. 2.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think Mr Prebble has raised an important issue about the cameras in the House, because we can clearly see what has happened here. We know that the Labour Government wants to control the cameras in this House. It is very clear that the Government has shifted all its MPs forward so that when the cameras film what they are allowed to film, it looks like it is packed up. It is a deliberate ploy to try to trick the members and they have left all the back benches—

💬 Madam SPEAKER: I have ruled that this is not a point of order.

It is a point of order.

Would the member please sit down. Mr Hide, would you please leave the Chamber. You did not sit down when I rose and asked you to. Would you please leave the Chamber.

💬 Rodney Hide: This is a serious issue.

Would you please leave this Chamber.

💬 Rodney Hide: Madam Speaker—

I will ask the Serjeant-at-Arms to assist you.

💬 Rodney Hide: This is hopeless. You will not let the cameras go, you will not say what the rules are, and you will not let anyone do their job in here.

It is my job to rule on what is a point of order and to maintain order.

Rodney Hide withdrew from the Chamber.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The circumstance that has just contributed to Mr Hide being asked to leave the Chamber is, in my opinion, entirely the problem of the Government. This is question time, where there is the opportunity to question Ministers. Repeatedly over the last 3 years we have seen Ministers offend in the House to a point where they should have been asked to leave. The previous Speaker—and I am sure it will be in the rulings that flow from his tenure—has said that if Ministers are to answer a question later in the proceedings they could stay in the House for that. I ask you to consider allowing Mr Hide to come back into the House to ask question No. 6. It seems to me that where a party has only limited opportunities to ask questions it should be given the full opportunity to ask those questions. Ministers have been accorded this sort of courtesy in the past, and I ask you to consider today allowing Mr Hide to come back to ask his question, question No. 6—which, of course, we know is going to cause the Government considerable embarrassment.

Clearly what happened here, and is continuing to happen, is a series of points of order designed to challenge your authority. I have never seen any situation where a member continues to refuse to obey the Speaker’s ruling and does not end up being thrown out of the House. To now allow the member back in will be essentially to say that there is no real penalty for that persistent bad behaviour, and I am surprised that Mr Brownlee is associating himself with Mr Hide’s behaviour in that respect.

Actually, what we have here is a member raising a point of order—which he or she is entitled to do; members are entitled to have a point of order heard by everyone, including the Speaker—and the Speaker deciding, even though the person raising it was a leader of a party, to rise in the middle of a point of order and then push the member into a position whereby the right to raise a point of order has now been deprived of an Opposition party member. That has not been done by this Speaker to any Government member. Government members have been raising bogus points of order, as was pointed out by Mr Hide yesterday, which actually deprived our party of questions that we wanted to ask. That was not interrupted by the Speaker. However, you have got up now and have created, perhaps unintentionally, the impression that the Government is going to be protected from being asked question No. 6, which asks why its Ministers are seen to be asleep on the job.

I want to protest on behalf of New Zealand First at the way the question time has been conducted thus far today. It has been a gross waste of time, as have the points of order, as has the reference to the absence of members. In the case of the ACT members it is very obvious why it is—they are getting used to being out of the House permanently in a few months’ time, and I could say it is the same for the back bench over there. It is 20 past 2, and some of us have to catch an aeroplane. We are just wasting the whole time, and I think it is totally unacceptable.

The member whom I asked to withdraw had raised a point of order several times. I had ruled on that point of order and he continued to raise that point of order. I now wish to move to question No. 2.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Thank you for that ruling, but the point is, as the whip of the ACT party, I would like to know whether Mr Hide can come back to ask his question No. 6. Could your ruling make that quite clear, please?

My ruling is, no, he cannot. The member is responsible for his own behaviour.

Question time resumed.