Speaker’s Rulings — Tabling of Documents—Accuracy and Delivery of Documents

Before we started question time, Tracey Martin raised a point of order, I made a ruling, and the Hon David Parker made an intervention. Since that time, I have had the opportunity to read the Standing Orders report to which he referred, the 2008 report, and the changes which occurred in Standing Orders which made the Speaker’s ruling on which I relied out of date. It does, however, leave us with a problem, and that is where an absolute obligation to table a document is created but the Clerk’s Office has an obligation not to let documents be tabled that do not fit the description of the document for which leave has been given. I am now going to rule that in future, if this occurs, the member and the Clerk, or the member or the Clerk, will refer the matter to me and it will be a matter of a ruling in each particular case, which is likely to, if I find with the Clerk that the document is not the one described, result in some criticism of a member who wrongly described a document.