Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I have two questions for you. The first goes to your ruling in question time today in relation to a denial of the call I was seeking. I ask you whether under standing order 86 there is an obligation on the Speaker to acknowledge a member or whether that is a discretionary call. I would ask you to respond to that. Secondly, I would ask you to review the tapes of question time today. A consistent point of order that we have taken has been the delay in your asking the Prime Minister to resume his seat when a member of the opposition has risen to make a point of order. Clearly, it facilitates a completion of the answer by the Prime Minister and delays a call being sought by a member of the opposition, and I would ask you to review the tapes to see whether or not that is a practice which is occurring. I am sure it is not a conscious practice, but nonetheless it is one that has been noted on a number of occasions. I wonder whether, once you have reviewed those tapes, you could report back to the parliament.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I have indicated from the outset of the parliament, it was not my intention to take questions about procedural matters that had occurred, but it would appear that it might assist if I were to make some remarks about the two matters that have been raised by the member for Dickson. Not giving him the call is something that is rare. It is not something that I would intend to use to a great extent but sparingly. I will not be reviewing the tape about the incident that he raised because my actions were as he has outlined them.

As I have indicated in the past, if I believe that when somebody is rising for a point of order—and on this occasion it was the member for Flinders—the minister with the call answering the question is likely to be finishing the answer, I will allow that. So he is correct. I do not have to review the tape. That is what happened on this occasion. But I simply say to him that, even if I took the point of order, the answer would still be completed and there would be disruption and there would be delay. I am very comfortable in the way in which I have protected members’ rights to rise and make points of order. As I said, I hope my action towards the member for Dickson will continue to be very rare, but they have precedence in this place, where I believe that we can continue the business without value adding by getting into a procedural debate when I was confident that I had upheld the standing and sessional orders and the precedent. The member for Dickson will remember that I had a response to a tweet of his about this particular point. I do not believe that I am giving any advantage to somebody who is completing their answer because, after the point of order is raised, it is very difficult for me then to prevent that answer being completed.