Points of Order — Associate Ministers—Delegated Areas of Responsibility

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This point of order is in relation to Speaker’s ruling 147/4, which relates to the issue of the tabling of delegations to Associate Ministers. It is my understanding that no such list has yet been tabled in the House. Until that list is tabled, questions cannot be asked of Associate Ministers, because it is not known what their responsibilities are, if any. I am sure the Opposition, and even some Government backbenchers, are keen to table questions to Associate Ministers, and I think, after some 3½ months of the Government being in office, it might be about time now for a list of delegations to be tabled. After 100 days of action, perhaps 100 minutes might be sufficient for the Government to see to that relatively simple task. The list of Associate Ministers in this Government is pretty small.

I give the House an assurance that we are following a timetable previously used by other Governments—former Governments, in fact—and the delegations will be tabled in due course.

Perhaps I could just point out to the member that the delegations last year were tabled on 12 February, and we are now well into March.

I do not want to prolong this exercise, but last year was 2008. I am sure that Michael Cullen was not telling us that the 2005 delegations were tabled in September 2008. We will be tabling the delegations in due course.

In case anyone thought that for once Mr Brownlee had made a point, that, of course, related to a reshuffle in December 2007.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Honourable members, I think we can consider the score to be about one all.