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Wednesday, 5 May 2021

Speaker’s Rulings — Written Questions—Timeliness of Replies

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🗣️ Speech Sir Rt Hon Trevor Mallard (New Zealand Labour Party — List Member)
Time unknown

Members have raised with me the timeliness of replies to written questions. After discussions with the Business Committee yesterday, I have agreed to rule on the matter.

Increasingly, Ministers are proactively releasing papers. This should greatly help public access to information. It has the potential to save time for members and to reduce the number of written questions lodged to seek routine information and I encourage it. There have been two main concerns raised with me. The first is that references by a Minister to information being online have not always been specific enough to assist in the location of the information. I would remind members of Speaker’s ruling 194/5, which states that if a Minister chooses to reply by directing a member to information already available, it must be done with some particularity. It is not acceptable to simply state that the information has already been released. Rather, the Minister should provide a sufficiently detailed answer to enable the member to directly locate the information.

The other concern is the timeliness of proactive information releases. If information is not released in a timely way, it causes unreasonable delays to members receiving substantive replies to their written questions. Under Standing Orders [392(4)], members are entitled to receive a reply to a written question within six working days. It is not reasonable for them to have to wait much longer than that for a proactive release of information. Therefore, I am ruling that if the information requested in a written question will not be made available for two weeks or more, the Minister must provide a substantive reply to the written question rather than refer the member to information that will be released in the future. Where Ministers do refer a member to information available elsewhere, they must provide specific details to assist in locating it.

I will continue to review the matter with the Business Committee periodically to see whether things improve.

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