Speaker’s Rulings — Oral Questions—Ministerial Responsibility, Defunct Portfolios

Three related issues arose in the House last Wednesday in relation to an oral question from the Hon David Parker. The first issue is about whom questions are actually directed to. The next issue concerned how the Government could be questioned about portfolios that no longer exist. The other matter was the extent to which the Government of the day is answerable for the actions of previous Governments. I will deal with the three matters in that order.

Questions to Ministers relate to a portfolio that a Minister holds, not to an individual person. A question must relate to one portfolio and can only be directed to a Minister about a matter for which he or she is currently responsible and not to a portfolio held previously. The exception is the Prime Minister, who is responsible for all activities of the Government.

Where a portfolio is defunct, there may be a Minister in a related, successor portfolio. In that case, a question should be directed to that Minister. Ministers have a duty to the House to decide on the appropriate Minister to answer a question and to direct the question to the Minister who holds the portfolio more directly concerned with the subject matter of the question. I refer you to Speakers’ rulings 167/1 to 167/5. It is for the Government, not the Speaker, to determine which Minister has portfolio responsibility for a question—Speakers’ ruling 167/4.

There will be some instances where there is no clear successor portfolio. The Prime Minister is the head of executive Government and determines the title, scope, and allocation of all ministerial portfolios—Cabinet Manual, page 18. The decision to create or to disestablish a portfolio belongs solely to the Prime Minister. Furthermore, the Prime Minister is the principal adviser to the Sovereign and has responsibility to the House for all activities of the Government. It is permissible to ask the Prime Minister a question about any of the public affairs with which the Government is officially connected. Speakers’ rulings note that the ministerial responsibility of the Prime Minister, in particular, is a broad one—Speaker’s ruling 173/4.

Because the Prime Minister is the only one who can disestablish a ministerial portfolio and because of his or her very wide sphere of ministerial responsibility, questions about a portfolio that no longer exists should be addressed to the Prime Minister where there is no successor portfolio. There are some limitations on the Prime Minister’s responsibility for defunct portfolios. He or she is not responsible for a previous administration.

That point leads to the final matter raised—the extent to which the Government of the day is answerable for the actions of previous Governments. The Government is not considered by the House to be a single, continuous entity. The defeat of a Government in an election marks the end of one administration and the commencement of another, even though there may be a caretaker period. Ministers in the Government of the day are not responsible for the activities of the previous administration. But in respect of the activities of the previous Government that a Minister has had to address as a member of the current Government, it is legitimate for the Minister to comment on them, and I refer members to Speaker’s ruling 174/1. A Minister is never responsible for the policies or activities of the Opposition and so should not be asked about them or offer a view on them in the answers—Speakers’ rulings 174/2 to 174/4.

Two points of order were raised last Wednesday related to these matters, which I would like to address now. Mr Brownlee took issue with the question referring to “roles … previously carried out for the Hon Murray McCully”. Having reflected further on the matter I believe that Mr Brownlee was correct to do so. The second part of the question brought in matters for which the Minister is no longer responsible. As I have ruled, a question must relate to a portfolio currently held by a Minister.

Mr Hipkins then raised a question about whether a Minister may be questioned about something that he or she became aware of when handling a previous portfolio. Having further considered that point, I agree with Mr Hipkins that a Minister may be questioned about matters he or she became aware of prior to holding a current portfolio, provided the question asked is relevant to a portfolio currently held by the Minister.

I thank members for raising these matters, which have not been the subject of many previous Speakers’ rulings.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for those rulings. I accept them and I think they are wise guidance to the House. I have one further point of clarification. I sought some advice from the Clerk of the House after the question time to which you referred. He made the point, which is not addressed in your ruling, that where the Prime Minister or indeed other Ministers transfer a question—because I can see that if a question in this context was put to the Prime Minister he may choose, quite rightly, to refer it to another Minister—the Minister to whom the question should be referred is actually the Minister with the most knowledge, and he thinks that that is implicit, or the impression I took is that that is implicit in Speaker’s ruling 167/5. I think it would be helpful if you could clarify that in these unusual situations where there is a transfer—actually, in the end, for the House to be able to learn what it should learn—the person to whom the question should be transferred, if it is transferred, is the person who has the most knowledge about it.

I will look further at the matter, but I think that is well and truly covered in the ruling I have just given, in that it is the duty of the Government and the Ministers to make sure that the question is directed to the Minister with the most knowledge and most ability to answer that question. That is an expectation of this House.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for those rulings. I think they will be very helpful moving forward. The one thing that I would ask perhaps for some further consideration of is what constitutes an administration in a continuing sense. In other words, if a Government is elected in 1 year, goes through a 3-year term and is re-elected, does that continue to be the same administration? With the MMP environment the make-up and nature of that can be quite different, and indeed some policies that might have been promoted in a 3-year term may, in a subsequent 3-year term with the Government continuing, in fact not be progressed or may even be overturned. So I think it does, under the MMP environment, raise a question about how long an administration should be considered as being in office.

Of course, that very issue arose in respect of the last Labour Government, which for a subsequent term was questioned in respect of the actions of the immigration department and former immigration Minister Taito Phillip Field. Of course, the questions were perfectly in order in respect of the subsequent Parliament.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is a relevant but slightly different point, and it relates to the answerability of Ministers for the actions of previous Governments, which does not seem to have been covered by the ruling that you have just made. The Government of the day, whoever it is, continues to have accountability for decisions made by previous Governments that they may not necessarily have been involved with in so far as there is a continuing impact of those decisions. I think of things such as breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, the abuse of children in the care of the State—those sorts of issues where it may have been successive Governments that had some responsibility. Someone still has to answer to the House for those types of issues, and it is the Government of the day, whoever that is.

I think, on Mr Hipkins’ point, I have covered that point in detail in the ruling. On Mr Brownlee’s point—in my mind, as I considered this ruling, an administration changed, for instance, at the end of 1999. It changed again at the end of 2008. If there was a substantial change in the formation of a coalition Government—a substantial change—that meant the overall direction and policies of the Government changed, I could see that being considered as the end of an administration, but, in my mind, the current administration in Government today applies since November 2008.