Points of Order — Members—Conduct in Chamber, Moving About the Chamber

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. During the Hon Clare Curran’s speech on the committee stage of the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) yesterday, the Rt Hon David Carter walked across the floor, stood in front of her, and dropped a copy of the bill on her desk. His point was that the speech that she was delivering was not relevant to the content of the bill. [Interruption] There’s no relevant—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Which member interjected then? Someone over here interjected—right. Mr Bennett will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

💬 Hon David Bennett: I withdraw and apologise.

💬 SPEAKER: I just want to really emphasise that this is an important point of order, and all points of order are heard in silence.

There’s no specific Standing Order or Speaker’s ruling about walking across the Chamber to distract a member or interrupt their speech, which does reflect it’s a somewhat unusual practice. There are, however, numerous rulings about interrupting a debate—including, for example, Speakers’ rulings 59/1 and 59/2, which forbid interjections while standing or changing seats to make an interjection. If those practices are out of order, I would argue to you that walking across the Chamber in such a fashion should also be deemed to be out of order, and I’d ask you to give consideration to making such a ruling.

I thank you, Mr Speaker. During the debate, it was developing into a very, very wide-ranging debate. I raised that with Madam Chair Williams at the time. She allowed such a wide-ranging debate to continue. When the member in question took her speech, she was not referring to the legislation. Attempting to be a very helpful member to this House so that we could have a debate that was focusing on the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2)—in no threatening fashion at all, but in an attempt to be absolutely helpful—I just passed a copy of the bill to her for her information.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Point of order—

💬 SPEAKER: Speaking to the point of order.

—speaking to the point of order—number one, the speech was relevant to the bill. Number two, it was highly unusual practice. It was a confronting practice that in my nine years in this House I’ve never experienced before, and I think it’s very unusual, and I do ask the Speaker to consider making a ruling.

I have the advantage of having viewed the incident on television. I will say to the Rt Hon David Carter that he is aware that questions of relevance are matters for the chair and are not matters for stunts, even if the member was attempting to be helpful. So I think he was not helpful. But the main point I’d make to the Hon Chris Hipkins is that the matter was dealt with quite properly by the Chair at the time—very well by the Chair at the time—and if there was any objection to the Chair’s ruling, then it should’ve been taken up immediately, and it was not.