Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4204 ..

sought to contract a motion. It was proposed by Ms Follett that if the first amendment was out of order, so was the second.

Ms Follett also sought guidance on what form a legitimate amendment might take, referring to previous occasions where amendments went so far as to negate a motion entirely.

I undertook to consider the matter.

Assembly standing orders contain a number of provisions relating to amendments. Standing orders 138 to 147 contain provisions relating to the form of amendments, relevancy, consistency, the order in moving amendments, amendments to amendments and the putting of the question on amendments. In addition, Chapters XV and XVI of standing orders contain provisions particular to amendments to Bills and financial procedures and other chapters contain provisions on amendments such as those that anticipate matters on the Notice Paper (s.o. 130) and the same question rule (s.o. 138). Amendments may not be moved to certain questions and motions, for example a motion for the adjournment of the Assembly or the question "That the question be now put". Also, of course, amendments should be framed in such a manner that, if agreed to by the Assembly, the question as amended would be intelligible and not a meaningless form of words.

The question that arose in the Assembly on 25 September was that of the relevance of the foreshadowed amendment to Mr Moore's motion. It is stated in House of Representatives Practice that of fundamental importance to the conduct of debate is the rule that no Member may digress from the subject matter of any question under discussion and this rule, together with certain provisos, is set down in Assembly standing order 58. This rule is also set down in standing order 140, which stipulates that every amendment must be relevant to the question that it is proposed to amend.

Clearly, an amendment can be proposed to alter the details of a motion, another amendment or a clause of a Bill, but it cannot propose to alter the subject matter of the question under consideration. Whilst an amendment
may restrict the area of relevancy in a debate, it may

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .