Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Melbourne will resume his seat. The minister will just wait—I'm going to rule on the point of order, if that's okay with him! I'm going to make two points to the member for Melbourne. Certainly, the last part of the member for Melbourne's question was about those two specific policy areas, agriculture and transport. The problem for the chair, of course, is the preambles to questions, which ministers are entitled to address. And, in the case of Independents' questions, they tend to be longer, given the longer time limit they have for their questions—45 seconds. That's beyond my control; I've made that point on numerous occasions. But I do say to the Minister for the Environment and Energy: none of the preamble or the specific questions from the member for Melbourne—I was about to intervene—relate to the opposition, so he needs to confine himself to the question.

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