Personal Explanations — Oral Questions—Question No. 10 to Minister

I seek leave of the House under Standing Order 358 to make a personal explanation in respect of my question in the House this afternoon on electoral law.

💬 SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that proceeding? There is none.

During the course of question time—of the Minister of Justice about any other country that had high standards of democracy and human rights that had the sort of law being proposed for New Zealand, the Minister answered “New Zealand”, and I raised a point of order with you about the appropriateness of that answer. In the course of that discussion, I genuinely thought that I had used the word “another”, as was on my notes and prepared questions for the time. I subsequently checked the audio I used and the word was “a” rather than “other”. The second time I did use the word “another”. I wish to apologise to you, Mr Speaker, and the House for what was a genuine error.

I thank the member and say that is now the end of that matter.