Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill

Mr Speaker, the Committee has determined that you should be recalled to pass a ruling on a ruling that I made. The Committee returned to the matters declared by you as you departed from the Chair as Speaker a few minutes ago. As I was announcing the bill that the Committee of the whole House was to progress, a motion was received that we report progress. I duly put the motion. It was defeated 63 votes to 53 votes. I then commenced to read the process of what the Committee of the whole House would do, and immediately the same motion was moved again, at which point I ruled that the same procedural motion in the exact same words could not be put again. On that point, there was a motion to report progress so that you could be recalled. It was defeated. I was then asked as Chair to reflect on whether my ruling was correct. I thought about that, and to the best of my knowledge I thought that it was, so I ruled that the same procedural motion could not be put twice. At that point there was another motion to recall you as Speaker to rule on the matter; accordingly, we have come to that point in the proceedings.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Could I just ask, before you leave, what the circumstances were when the motion was first moved to report progress. Did the member have the call to speak in the Committee?

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): No, I was just reading the bill. I was just getting to the stage where I would say: “When the Committee last addressed this matter, we were on clause 6A.” I did not get as far as that.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. The first issue is that the motion that the Committee report progress can be made only by a member who has the call. It cannot be made by way of a point of order. So it may be questionable whether that motion was actually in order at the time. As I understand it, though, that is not the crucial issue that I have been recalled to rule on.

The interesting, crucial issue, as I understand it, that I have been recalled to rule on is whether, once the Committee has made a decision, the same procedural motion can be put an endless number of times. This is an interesting issue of order. I well understand why you, Mr Chairman, ruled the way you did, because normally, once the Committee or the House has voted—especially once the Committee has voted—on a matter, that is normally the end of that matter in respect of legislation. If the Committee has decided on an amendment, that is the end of that matter. Endless further amendments cannot be put to try to overturn that decision.

With this particular procedural issue, I must confess that I am not 100 percent certain that the same rules apply. I will seek some advice on this one. What troubles me—and I will be honest with the House—is that Standing Orders provide for the Committee to make a decision to report progress, for the report to be made, and for the House to then vote on that matter. If we end up in a situation where endless motions can be put to the Committee to report progress, which are all defeated, we end up in a totally unworkable situation. That clearly is not in the interest of the House. I will hear the Hon Trevor Mallard before I seek advice on it.

As you are getting advice, I say that you are absolutely right about the situation that would inevitably come about through what is probably, in my opinion, a gap in the Standing Orders at the moment. I think you will recall, Mr Speaker, as I indicated to the Chairman, that in the past once procedural motions—for example, closure motions—were defeated, the Government could not move them again. Then there was a point later on where the same member could not move the same motion twice. That, again, is something that has been changed. It is my understanding that, as a result of those changes, the multiple moving of the same motion, where it is a procedural motion, is allowed.

I make it clear that normally an Opposition would not contemplate that sort of approach, but I think it is fair to say that the Opposition today is feeling somewhat aggrieved at a breach of the right of members to debate a bill that they would otherwise have preferred on this side of the House. As you are aware, it is something that the House has jealously guarded—that is, the right of the Opposition to have much more involvement in dictating the terms of the fortnightly members’ days. They are the few hours that occur for genuine members’ time, rather than what would otherwise be the case. So it is certainly my view that there is an ability for members to do that.

I accept, of course, that the first part of your ruling was absolutely correct—that is, the fact that it should have been done by way of a speech and not by way of a point of order. I am sure that if you rule in a way that would indicate that there is something here for the Standing Orders Committee to look at, if there is a gap in the rules, I would think that that is acceptable. I am sure that in future the motion will be moved by a member who has sought the call.

It may be somewhat unusual for me to respond, but the whole thing did happen quite quickly. I now understand the point that the Hon Trevor Mallard made. When he asked me to reflect on whether I thought it was in order—there is a pertinent difference between a closure motion not being accepted by the Chair in the Committee and a closure motion being defeated by vote. It is my understanding, by all meeting procedure that I know anywhere, that a procedural motion cannot be put twice. I saw that pertinent difference, then I made the ruling accordingly. That is the rationale for my decision.

I ask for members’ indulgence while I consider the advice that I have been given on this matter. This is a serious issue, because we risk bringing the House into disrepute if we end up in a bit of a shambles. The issue that you, Mr Chairman, have raised in relation to this matter is interesting: where a closure motion is put—and a closure motion is the one that normally can be put more than once—it is not able to be handled subsequent to the Committee making a decision. As Mr Chairman has pointed out, the Chair can refuse to accept the closure motion and debate can continue in the Committee. Once the Committee makes a decision on the closure, that is the end of the matter. That is an interesting observation that the Chair made.

On other hand, the Hon Trevor Mallard, the shadow Leader of the House, has pointed out that in terms of clear definition within our Standing Orders, it is reasonable to suggest that our Standing Orders do not specifically cover this particular issue. The same-questions rule really applies to instructions, amendments, and bills, where the questions are the same in substance. So in those circumstances, with the House having made a decision, that decision must be accepted.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Can I just—

I will hear the Hon Trevor Mallard as I reflect further on it.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is something that I should have said. I would just ask you to reflect on a similar motion that is regularly moved, especially during urgency, and generally by the Government Minister in charge of a bill. It is the motion that progress be reported on a bill and it be set down for further consideration presently. That procedural motion has been, and can be, regularly moved on the same bill. The bill comes back to the House, and that motion can be moved again on the same bill. So if the question is that a procedural motion cannot be moved twice in the same day on the same legislation, then there is clearly precedent for that.

The interesting thing is that the logic of our Standing Orders is such as to enable the decisions of the Committee and the decisions of the House to be sensible decisions. That is the objective of most of these Standing Orders. In the case of the closure motion, it is sensible that the Chair have the discretion not to accept it, and that is why a closure motion can be moved more than once. But once the House has made its decision, that is the end of the matter. With respect to reporting progress and sitting again presently, it makes sense for that to be possible to be moved subsequently, because circumstances may change, so that the House can make a decision whether it wants to review that decision.

The dilemma I have about this particular motion, where the House has voted to accept the report from the Committee and the bill has been set down for next sitting day, is that that is a clear decision of the House. When members keep attempting to move to report progress again when, in this particular case, the decision not to accept the report has been made, it is difficult for me to argue that I should make a ruling that enables this House to go on as many times as there are members who wish to move that the Committee report progress even though the Committee may have made a decision.

I have to think about whether, if I rule one way or another, I would be offending the ability of the House to carry on its business, or constraining the Opposition’s opportunity on members’ day, as the member suggests, to debate the matters that members wish to debate. What I am inclined to do is to make a ruling—on the understanding, though, that the Standing Orders Committee will address this issue.

I think that we need to address this issue to make sure that we do not get into this hole again. But I think that I should rule, at the moment, on the basis of our current Standing Orders—but I accept this is purely a Speaker’s ruling; there is no Standing Order that says this—that where the Committee makes a decision with respect to reporting progress, that is the end of the matter for that period of consideration of that bill. It is not the end of the matter subsequently, but the possibility of fine-tuning that a bit would be to allow for a further motion once further business has been transacted. For example, if the Committee arrives at a new clause in the bill, or a new part in the bill, then the issue could come up again, because further consideration, further decisions, have been made by the Committee. The motion then would not be negating, or attempting to negate, a decision the Committee has already made, because the Committee has transacted further business, so the circumstances have changed. I will hear the Hon Rick Barker before I rule finally on the matter, but I fully accept that I have no clear Standing Order on which I can base the ruling. I am trying to find a sensible way forward that does not bring the House into disrepute.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was just going to address the point that you have come to. I started to take a point of order, but you continued on. I thought, the way you were describing it then, that if a motion to report progress was defeated, then a motion to report progress could not be put again until the bill had completed its passage through the Committee stage. I thought that was several steps too far. But what I think you have done is clarify the situation to say that if a motion to report progress is put at a certain point and the Committee decides against it, then that is a matter for that particular part or clause of the bill that is being considered. Once the Committee makes another decision, such as deciding to approve that clause or part, the Committee starts on a clean sheet of paper again, and at that point the House can reconsider the matter if it wishes to. I think that is quite a sensible approach to take. If it had been open-ended, then we could have had a bill for which a procedural motion to refer it could have been prohibited for the time that the bill sat in that particular Committee stage of the whole House.

The member makes a very useful contribution, and I thank him very much for that. I will refer the matter to the Standing Orders Committee to make sure that members have the chance to further consider this issue. In the meantime, I will rule on this motion to report progress once the Committee has made a decision with regard to reporting progress while considering a part or a clause, depending on how the bill is being handled in the Committee. If further decisions are then made with regard to that bill, the motion can be moved again because the Committee is in a new phase of consideration. Logically, matters have changed, as the Hon Rick Barker pointed out, and it is reasonable for the Committee to have the opportunity to reconsider the matter. I realise I am asking in some ways for the goodwill of the House, but I will rule that way. I promise the House that I will make sure the Standing Orders Committee reviews my ruling. Should the Standing Orders Committee wish to change it, that will be a matter that can come back to the House following the consideration of the work of the Standing Orders Committee at present.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think it is a very good suggestion to refer it to the Standing Orders Committee, but there is a certain time issue. The Standing Orders Committee has to complete its deliberations, refer the matter to caucuses, and then bring it back and establish the Standing Orders. In the interim I think it would be very helpful if, tomorrow or the next day at your earliest convenience, you could come back to the House with a written ruling as such. That would be very helpful so that we then had some clearer guidelines. We could refer to the written text of your ruling, rather than have to hunt through Hansard to find how this has been developed. I think that would be very useful.

I will give consideration to that, based on what I have said to the House now: that once the Committee has made a decision on reporting progress, the matter cannot be raised again until the Committee has transacted further business. I will rule that way for the present. Should I need to improve the wording of it, I will certainly come back to the House with wording that I think can serve the House a little better. So I will rule that way now on the understanding that I will further consider the wording of that ruling and also that the Standing Orders Committee will have the opportunity to consider the substance of my ruling, recognising that that will not be an immediate decision. But the work of the Standing Orders Committee is going on. It will report back to this House. That is the way I have ruled.

In Committee

Debate resumed.

Clause 6A Sections 229A to 229C apply to private training establishments