Speaker’s Rulings — Written Questions—Overdue Replies

It has come to my attention that replies to 24 written questions from Dr Shane Reti to the Minister of Health are overdue, some by as much as three weeks. I accept that this is a busy portfolio with over 2,000 written questions replied to this year and there is a process of change in the administrative arrangements; however, not answering questions on time is an abuse of the written question process and does not uphold the requirements for Ministers to account to this House for the offices they hold. As a result of the long delay in providing replies to these questions, I rule that the Minister will provide substantive answers to overdue questions by midday on Thursday, 11 August. Since the Opposition have been denied an opportunity to use written questions to scrutinise the Government in a timely manner, they will receive an additional 10 supplementary oral questions to be used by the end of this week.

I do accept that there will be occasional circumstances where replies are a day or two late, and I do not expect to receive complaints from members in those circumstances. I also take this opportunity to remind all Ministers of their obligations but also of their ability to lodge an interim reply on the rare occasions that a substantive reply cannot be provided within six working days.

Point of order. Just one question—I wondered how you intended to divide those 10 questions amongst Opposition parties?

No, I’ve related them entirely to the member whose questions have not been answered and who raised the question with me. It was my intention if Dr Reti had had a question to actually allocate the additional supplementaries to him, but he doesn’t have a question today, so I thought it fair that his colleagues could share them.