House debates Questions to the Speaker
Parliamentary Privilege
Joe Hockey North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer
3:49 pm
Mr Speaker, in one of your con brio statements from the chair during question time, you sought to refer to a tweet by the member for Dickson and engaged in a discussion of sorts about that tweet. I would ask you, Mr Speaker, to investigate whether, once there is an engagement in a discussion about a communication from the chamber, that communication from the chamber, either by a tweet or by email, gets covered by parliamentary privilege?
Harry Jenkins Speaker
I would doubt very much that it does, because it is not part of the proceedings of the parliament, and I think that that is fairly clear. The comments that I make that do form part of the procedures would. But I am not going to open the gate to mechanisms being used by putting on record things that are done over information technology by people inside this chamber, to give them any further status. I think that if the member for North Sydney really looked at what I said, con brio or not, I was actually making a comment about proceedings of this place.
Unidentified interjection - Hansard doesn't record who said this
Opposition Members:
Opposition members interjecting—
Stuart Robert Fadden, Liberal Party
Was that a roll of the eyes, Mr Speaker?
Stuart Robert Fadden, Liberal Party
Mr Speaker, I request that you write to the Prime Minister concerning question No. 1031, which has not received a response within the mandatory 60 days.