Electoral Amendment Bill

Mr Speaker, the House in Committee has moved that you be recalled to determine whether my judgment in accepting a closure motion was an appropriate course of action. The debate on Part 1 of the Electoral Amendment Bill has been in progress over two sessions, and by the records I have in front of me there have been 19 calls on the bill itself, plus four closure motions. I have taken care to ensure that everybody who has a Supplementary Order Paper to the bill has had as many calls as they desire. I would just say that the debate had tended, in my view, to move away from the principles of the bill to a looser, more general debate, and so I gave one caution and I determined that, in fact, the principles of Part 1 of the bill had been well and truly debated. On top of that there was a claim by Denis O’Rourke that New Zealand First had not had a call in this debate. It had the fourth call in this debate, so, in fact, that was a claim in error. On reflection, I am quite convinced that a satisfactory debate on Part 1 of this bill has taken place.

Mr Speaker, I moved to have you recalled. The reason for so moving was a very simple one. There was a suggestion from the Chairman that Mr O’Rourke had not sought the call. Mr O’Rourke had sought the call. That was part of the judgment the Chairman gave in making his decision. In my view, he was wrong. There is a supplementary point that flows from what the Chairman said. This is not a debate about the principles of the bill; this is a debate about the details of Part 1. Mr Goff, the previous speaker, spoke extensively on the details of that part over a 10-minute call. If he had not been speaking on the details, of course the Chairman would have given the call to someone else after 5 minutes.

Just raising a point out of the commentary the Chairman made, he said that every member who has a Supplementary Order Paper in their name had been given every opportunity to speak to that Supplementary Order Paper. My colleague Maryan Street has certainly had one opportunity to speak, but she was seeking further calls.

💬 Louise Upston: No, she’s taken two calls.

The senior Government whip is interrupting me. I point out that every member has the right to up to four 5-minute calls on each part of a bill. Maryan Street was seeking further calls in order to speak to her Supplementary Order Paper 416. There were also a number of questions raised to the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Commerce, none of which has been addressed. The issues the Opposition members are raising are around changes that have occurred to the legislation with little or no explanation. The Committee of the whole House is the opportunity for the Opposition to ask for explanations of the Minister, and thus far none has been forthcoming, so it seemed appropriate to us that the debate continue.

In the original point of order raised, the member Mr O’Rourke said he had not taken a call in this debate. According to our records, he did take a call in the first part of the debate, which was not today but on a prior occasion. So I do not believe that the facts that were put on the table in the point of order were correct.

What has just been said is completely incorrect. It is true that I took the fourth call, but today I sought another call. What the Chairman said was that that had not happened—that no such call had been sought. I did, immediately before he ruled, seek to speak. I wanted to speak about some of the detail of the bill. In my first call I had talked only about some of the general issues concerned. So what has been said is not correct, and I think what Mr Mallard said was correct. This debate should not have been curtailed at this stage.

I have been in the House since the Committee resumed on this bill after question time, and I think the Chair of the Committee has diligently carried out his duties. When he said to the House that Mr O’Rourke had not been seeking the call, there had been a number of closure motions. On several of those occasions, two or three members rose to take the call. Mr O’Rourke was not one of them until after Mr Roy had accepted the closure motion. That is where I thought Mr Roy, the Chair of the Committee, properly presented the case. He quite properly reported to the House that had Mr O’Rourke been repeatedly seeking the call since the Committee started after question time, he might have a fair point, but he had not been. It was only at the very last opportunity that he sought the call, and that is when Mr Roy quite properly represented the events that occurred in the Committee in his justification for accepting the closure motion.

It is just a straight matter of fact. Dr Smith said that Mr O’Rourke did not contest the call before the Chairman ruled; he did.

I thank all members for their points. I am going to refer members to Speakers’ rulings 64/4 and 64/5. In essence, what those Speakers’ rulings say is that it is not for me as Speaker to second-guess the Chairperson’s acceptance of a closure motion. I was not in my office listening to the debate, but I am mindful of the point that Eric Roy made as Chairman of the debate that he felt that the debate was already getting loose and that he had taken the opportunity of cautioning the Committee that if members wanted to further debate it, they needed to tighten it up. In this particular case, the Chairman has made a decision that there have been 19 calls and a number of closure motions. He is the person who is listening to the debate. He has decided that the matter has been adequately debated. On that basis I am accepting the position of Mr Eric Roy as Chairman. I therefore declare the House returning to Committee.

In Committee

Debate resumed.