Points of Order — Parliamentary Press Gallery—Access to Parliamentary Complex

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I should have raised this before you started on petitions, but I just want to raise this point of order in respect of a ruling you have made on the presence of media in parts of the parliamentary complex. We respect your role as, effectively, the administrator of Parliament and the person who decides on its rules. We are, however, concerned that the decision was made, and it is something of a departure from the normal historical process, where a change in the rules around media access to Parliament would have been discussed with the political parties as we have discussed other issues such as broadcasting and so on. In this case that did not occur, and we would be interested in getting your view on what opportunity there will be for the political parties to be part of the decision making around the access of media to Parliament, since it is something that I think all of us value—the fact that in the New Zealand Parliament the media have had broad access, and generally that has been without incident or trouble, so the ruling is something of a departure.

I thank the member and I am very happy to contact members after question time to explain the process and decision. I have met with the press gallery today, and I think there has been some confusion. There is no banning of filming at all—there is, in fact, a reversion to the rule that applies throughout the place for members of the gallery to seek permission, which has rarely, if ever, in my experience, not been given. So I think there was a misunderstanding, but I am happy to clarify that for members afterwards.