Page 549 - Week 04 - Thursday, 29 June 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
expression of opinion or for a legal opinion. Questions shall not ask Ministers to announce Executive policy, but may seek an explanation regarding the policy of the Executive and its application, and may ask the Chief Minister whether a Minister's statement represents Executive policy.
Standing order 118 provides that the answer to a question without notice shall be concise and confined to the subject matter of the question. An answer must not debate the subject to which the question refers. In discussions on this matter with a member, I have been advised that some members have gone beyond what they knew to be acceptable, but have proceeded in the knowledge that I would call them to order. In view of the fact that I am, in these early learning days of the Assembly, being most lenient in my interpretation of standing orders, I am dismayed at the admission of non-self-restraint. Please do not interpret my current approach as weakness, else the worm may turn.
I ask that all members and Ministers observe the standing orders which apply to questions and answers. I am sure that if the rules are followed question time will continue to be a significant and informative part of the proceedings of this Assembly which can be conducted in an amicable manner.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (12.16), by leave: Mr Speaker, your explanation and exposition of what question time is about is interesting, but I would just like to draw both yours and members' attention to a few matters in connection with speaking time which I attempted to raise the other day. It is all very well to seek to hide behind some standard of procedure, some parliamentary rule elsewhere, about what question time is or is not but, as I tried to say the other day, this is a new body and I would have thought that question time would have been used for the purpose for which it was intended, and that is to have Ministers explain and answer questions about their portfolios. To hide behind some rule that says that they may not answer the question if they so choose is, I believe, totally wrong and irrelevant in this body. I personally do not accept that a Minister under any circumstances can decline to answer a question. Particularly in the case where we have a government that went to the polls on the basis of open government, consultation, cooperative government, for the four Ministers to sit there and for any one of them to refuse to answer a question properly submitted is totally unacceptable, Mr Speaker.
I also remind the Government that when the matter of question time was discussed earlier and the 30 minutes was agreed upon, it was agreed upon on certain conditions. It was agreed not that the Chief Minister could arbitrarily determine when it would be 30 minutes and when it would not; we agreed upon it as a basis for discussion because some of us wanted a longer period of time given that it is
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .