Education—National Standards

Mr SPEAKER Link to this

That is not acceptable. I ask the House to come to order. The member asking the question often interjects when other members are asking questions. I ask him to just ask his question.

Hon Trevor Mallard Link to this

They always clap the weak Ministers.

Mr SPEAKER Link to this

The member will resume his seat immediately. The member has just lost one supplementary question.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove Link to this

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not wish in any way to challenge your ruling, but I would like to put something to you and ask your advice. Gerry Brownlee has done exactly the same as Mr Mallard eight times today—I counted. On occasion you have said to him that it was unacceptable. It is your right to determine the level of punishment, if you will—I accept that—but in no way, after eight occasions of doing far worse, at length, than Mr Mallard, did you ever—

Mr SPEAKER Link to this

The Hon Clayton Cosgrove will now resume his seat, because he is questioning my judgement and suggesting that I am not being impartial. I had already pulled up the Hon Trevor Mallard, when he asked a previous question, for giving a totally inappropriate interjection. Supplementary questions are totally at the discretion of the Speaker. I have given more supplementary questions to members of the Opposition when I have felt that the Ministers have not treated an answer appropriately. Today I am taking one off Labour, and the member will learn that this House is to be treated with respect and not like that.

Hon Darren Hughes Link to this

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder if you would give some very serious and deep reflection to what you are suggesting you want to do with regard to the allocation of supplementary questions. The entire operation of Parliament on a proportional system is a very delicately balanced arrangement among all the parties. At the beginning of a Parliament the number of supplementary questions that parties are allocated for each day is set out and agreed to by all the parties, as is the number of calls that are allocated, and as is the length of debates in a number of cases. I think that to have an arbitrary system whereby that is managed differently by you from day to day is a worrying precedent for you to set. I ask you to deeply reflect on that, because it is a very serious thing that you are doing, and it causes the Opposition to reflect on what arrangements made at the beginning of a Parliament for the rights of the Opposition in Parliament are to be had. Whatever the rights and wrongs—

Mr SPEAKER Link to this

I have heard the member’s point and I have listened—

Hon Darren Hughes Link to this

The Opposition loses here.

Mr SPEAKER Link to this

The Opposition will lose—indeed. Labour will lose today because the member asking the question would not listen to the Speaker’s directions to him to stop interjecting with abuse while he was asking a question. It was not the first time he did it; it was the second time he did it, while having the floor to ask a question. It is totally at the Speaker’s discretion as to what supplementary questions are awarded. The Speaker today has ruled that the member must learn not to do that kind of thing, and rather than go down the path of ordering the member out of the Chamber for that kind of thing, I have simply today taken a supplementary question off the member and his party, and that is the end of that matter. The member may not like it, but he might suggest that his colleagues actually treat the House with a little more respect and not do what the Hon Trevor Mallard did today.

Hon Darren Hughes Link to this

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sure that your invitation to reflect on behaviour will apply right across the Parliament, but the issue that has come up here is that the member responded to disorder from the Government. My question to you is about what penalty you believe is available to the Government when its members are clapping wildly at a very standard—

Mr SPEAKER Link to this

I have listened to the member long enough. The Hon Darren Hughes will resume his seat right now. If the member is concerned that I am not treating this House impartially, let him just reflect that in my 25 years in this Parliament I have never heard a Speaker require a Leader of the House to answer a question from the Opposition. Yesterday I required the Leader of the House to answer a question—that is unprecedented in my time in this House. So if the member is suggesting that I am being partial I suggest that he watch today’s replay and listen to the behaviour of his colleagues today. I think he will find it not a very satisfactory process. Here at the front I hear the noise on both sides, and let me assure the senior Labour whip that the behaviour of his colleagues today has not been very good at all.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove Link to this

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I ask you to provide us, if you will, with a considered ruling on the matter. You have taken the action you deemed appropriate in respect of Mr Mallard. You have taken a question from him after, you say, two indiscretions. You have also advised us that it has been your practice previously in respect of Government Ministers, if they err, that you allow further supplementaries to sanction that. So I ask you to give us a considered ruling in respect of the formula that would be adopted, given that there were eight indiscretions and that no increase in the number of supplementary questions was allowed by you, as is your right. Yet after two indiscretions a supplementary question was docked. I invite you to reflect on the quality of the behaviour from both sides.

Mr SPEAKER Link to this

The member is again questioning my judgment. He will resume his seat. I invite the Hon Trevor Mallard to ask a supplementary question, should he wish to do so.

Hon Trevor Mallard Link to this

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was a very simple, very specific, and very direct question. It asked the Minister about the Official Information Act. She made a general comment and did not refer to whether she would rule out that amendment.

Hon Trevor Mallard Link to this

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER Link to this

I will hear the Hon Trevor Mallard for the last time.

Hon Trevor Mallard Link to this

It was a very simple question: will the Minister rule out an amendment to the Official Information Act as a method of implementing her newly announced agreement to stop league tables? It is not a hypothetical question; it is a direct question. There does not have to be something before the Parliament for the Minister to rule it in or out. It is a question about her area of responsibility, and she did not answer it.

Mr SPEAKER Link to this

The member knows he cannot expect to get an exact yes or no answer to that kind of question. It is a hypothetical question—will the Minister do something in the future. There is no way the member can expect a specific answer to that question. I am afraid I cannot assist the member any further on that one.