Points of Order — Motions Without Notice—Process

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There has been some discussion for some time around motions in the House without notice—and the member consulted with all parties and we agreed to the notice about the motion just passed and we supported it. However, I do wonder whether you would give some consideration to a more streamlined process for considering these in light of the fact that they do seem to continue to recur. I wonder whether you might consider a ruling that foreseeable events should be the subject of a Business Committee decision as to which are put to the House for a motion and which are not, and only unforeseeable events, or very recent events, should be the subject of a motion with leave. I think it’s important that we consider the fact that there are a range of these issues that come up from time to time and we actually need to be fair to groups around which ones get the attention of the House and which ones do not, and the only way to do that sensibly is to consider them altogether.

Mr Speaker, before you respond, can I just say that I think that that would be a matter outside of the Speaker’s ability to rule, simply because members should always be free, as they are elected freely—whether they are constituent members or list members they are equally elected into this House freely and unencumbered—and should be able to seek the leave of their colleagues at any time for any matter that they think the House should consider. While it might be useful to have a discussion at the Business Committee and we would be participants in that, I think I’d be reluctant to see a hard and fast ruling that starts to contain the rights of members in this House. I think we’ve had too many hints of that happening, even in this week.

Well, I was just about to agree with the member. Can I suggest that there is a pretty easy compromise that sits here, and that is that we do put on the Business Committee agenda an item whereby members can put things forward. My expectation would be that members who have foreseeable events would do that. I won’t stop putting the leave for matters going forward to the House, because it is the right of members to seek leave, but it is my expectation that the House would be less likely to approve leave for those matters whereby notice had not been given by the Business Committee. Does that sound all right?

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: We’ll have the discussion first.

Thank you.