Points of Order

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to make a comment, and I hope you will allow me to do this, around the ruling that you made about the oral questions roster. Mr Speaker, obviously, you have the right to make the rulings that you do, but the Labour Party wants to register its strong concern with the ruling that you made that allows a member of the executive to continue to be counted in the calculation of the number of oral questions available to the Government.

It does not matter who that particular member is; it is about the position that they hold within the executive. For the purpose of questions, McGee is quite clear that members who hold executive office—Ministers, Associate Ministers, and parliamentary under-secretaries—are excluded from the calculation of the number of questions available to Government parties. This is, clearly, not just about the National Party; it is about all parties in the Government.

I think, in your ruling, Mr Speaker, that you acknowledged the fact that, actually, under the rules and guidance that this Parliament operates under, members of the executive should not be counted. Just because we have begun operating under a process that has proved to be incorrect, does not mean we should continue to do so, and the Labour Party strongly believes that members of the executive should not be counted and that we should not go ahead with a process that we all know to be wrong.

Firstly, I want to recognise, as Mr Robertson has, that this is your decision, and, I would say, the correct one. Given that—

💬 Hon Member: Funny that.

Well, we are now 20 years into MMP and there have been a number of evolutions over the last 20 years that have come as a result of arrangements that parties make around MMP. I would make the point that during his time as Clerk of the House, McGee himself not only presided over but advised on a number of changes to the Standing Orders that were, as a consequence of practice, developed by Governments in support of the Government’s position on MMP. So I think your decision simply continues that evolution, and I am sure that the Standing Orders Committee will be able to make a determination for future Parliaments that reflects the advice you have given the House today.

Mr Speaker, I had no intention of commenting on this matter in the House, but as others have put their thoughts on record, I would just like to record that the position of parliamentary under-secretary is an ambiguous one—for instance, being able to enter a member’s bill in the ballot. The net effect of your decision to date is to maintain the size of Parliament relative to the executive in respect of the allocation of questions, and I think that having Parliament hold the executive to account is a very important function of this House.

I thank all members for their contributions on this. It is a difficult issue. It was discussed at length at the Business Committee yesterday, and I attempted to drive a decision to be made by the Business Committee. My job there is to drive that to near unanimity. That proved to be more difficult on this occasion than on many others. Although I accept, with some validity, the arguments advanced by Mr Robertson, I do not think it is quite as clear as Mr Robertson is suggesting, and that is why I do request that this matter be absolutely clarified through the review of the Standing Orders so that there can be no confusion in the future.

For those members who have not had a chance to see the decision, the Business Committee has, in the past, allocated questions, and it last made a decision back in April of this year. In view of the fact that we could not get agreement to change the roster in any way, either to reflect the fact that we have had one recent retirement from Labour or to reflect the decision around parliamentary under-secretaries being able to ask questions, I have decided that the safest way for me is to just stick with the decision that was made by the Business Committee without any difficulty at all back in April. That is the situation that remains until the matter is tidied up through the review of the Standing Orders, which will come into effect without any confusion for the 52nd Parliament.