Points of Order — Ministerial Statements—Procedure

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I bring it up now, before we start question time. Look, we just saw a ministerial statement read in the House, a statement read by a Minister of the Government—a Cabinet Minister—to the House, which was then replied to by the Opposition, and then there was a further comment from another Minister in the same Government to the same ministerial statement. Is that something new for the House, or something that is just for today, or something we can look forward to in the future?

I think it’s something which has happened regularly since MMP, which has involved Governments of more than one party. It is very clear that each party leader has the ability to respond. I assume, in this particular case, Mr Bridges delegated his to Mr Woodhouse, and no one from the Labour Party had spoken before Dr Clark.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 SPEAKER: A new point of order? Because we’ve dealt with that one.

It’s just pointing out that, in fact, this situation hasn’t arisen before, because other times when it has occurred—when parties supporting a Government have contributed to a ministerial statement—they have not sat in Cabinet alongside those other Ministers.

💬 SPEAKER: And?

Well, is it new or not?

I think people—[Interruption] Order! I just want to make it clear that the Standing Orders are very clear, and that is that the leader of each party speaks, or someone who’s delegated to do so by them. That’s not a new Standing Order; it’s been around for a very long time.