Speaker’s Rulings — New Speaker’s Ruling—Oral Questions

Members, yesterday, the Hon Kieran McAnulty asked me to consider the potential for misrepresentation of parties in replies to oral questions. The particular concern was that Ministers’ answers referring to “the other side of the House” might be taken to include all parties not in Government. There are rules and practices that address that possibility.

The first is Speakers’ ruling 205/5: Ministers shouldn’t bring parties not involved in the question into the answer. Unless the question is a blatant political attack, there is no reason to mention any party at all when answering a question. There is never a reason to bring a party not involved in a question into the answer.

The second Standing Order is 367, which enables members who have been misrepresented in an answer to a question to have their response put on the official record. This remedy is seldom used, and I accept that it is not likely to resolve a situation where the misrepresentation has occurred through the presentation of official parliamentary footage through social media.

There is, however, Appendix D to the Standing Orders, which provides remedies for using official footage to mislead. I refer members to Part 2 of that Appendix, 6, and 7.