Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have great respect for the member for Watson and his knowledge of the standing orders. However, the practice in this place has been, as I understand it, that the chair takes from the opposition first, the minister has an opportunity to answer and the chair then defers the next question to the government and so it goes. If the minister chooses to answer at any time through the exercise—and I put this process to the member for Watson—he can take three or four interventions or propositions from either side and then answer all of those. It has been done in different ways. But, if the member for Watson is trying to say that the minister answering a question is therefore a government speaker, that has not been the practice. For the information of the room, we had a very long meeting on this with the chairs and deputy chairs of both sides of the House and we agreed that this was the process up here as it was explained to us—and that is my understanding of the practice.

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