Carter John: Standing Orders 
Carter John: Standing Orders 
[Volume:614;Page:10727] 
JOHN CARTER (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 As this is very likely to be my last opportunity this year to make a contribution to the House I want before I move on to the debate on the Standing Orders to take this opportunity of wishing you my colleagues on both sides of the House and all of those who work with us and have to put up with us a very merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year. I thank them all very much and I hope they have a safe and pleasant holiday. 
I want to comment on three interesting areas that were debated or will need to be debated given the events of recent times. The first matter I bring to the attention of the House is that of proxies. We have a system of proxies that we debated at the Standing Orders Committee whereby at the moment each party is limited to 25 percent of its membership. It is my view that we need to expand that to 100 percent proxies. I know that a number of the whips around here agree with me but unfortunately some of the caucuses including mine do not. All the whips in this House are honourable members and when they vote they do so knowing in their own minds that the records they are giving and the votes they are casting are absolutely correct. But I doubt whether there are any whips—with the exception maybe of the whips from one or two of the minor parties—who could stand here and swear 100 percent that every time they have voted the numbers they have they knew personally that every member who was meant to be here was actually here. I doubt very much that the whips from the caucuses with bigger numbers could say they that knew absolutely that somebody was not down the street having a haircut his or her teeth cleaned or doing something else—even though some of us might not need to have haircuts. 
I have spoken in the House on this issue before and I say again that it worries me that there might be times when inadvertently the whips breach the Standing Orders because somebody has ducked out thinking that there will not be a vote and then there is one. The whips might vote without knowing that a member is absent because leave has not been given. We tried to address the matter this time and I think it is one that we will have to come back to and address. 
I want to raise two other issues that are relevant to today’s debate. Indeed they are as a consequence of one or two issues that have been raised just recently—that is the issues around the snap debate procedure. I think it is Standing Order 376 that allows for an application for an urgent debate. I think that is something that perhaps the next Standing Orders Committee might well be advised to look at given the circumstances that are arising. I give notice to the House and to the Clerk particularly that I intend to put that up for our next Standing Orders debate which of course will now be during the next term. I presume I will be here but if I am not somebody else will put it up on my behalf. I do think it is important that we look at the rules around the issue of which snap debates can be allowed because as it stands at the moment those rules are quite restrictive. I suspect that they may have well been formed in days gone by whereas things are changing and the Standing Orders should be reviewed. 
The other matter I want to raise is in reference to Speaker’s ruling 5/33 which was made by Mr Kidd in 1998. That ruling links up with Standing Order 117. It relates to a speech that was made by the Hon Tariana Turia—as recently as yesterday I think—in respect of which we might have to look at the Standing Orders in the context of the questioning. For instance the questions that were put down today were quite correctly ruled outside the scope of her designation as a Minister. I think we need to look at that. If speeches made by Ministers or indeed members bring imputations against members in the House—even though they are not made in the House—there may be reason for us to look at the Standing Orders that allow us from time to time to debate those matters. 
This place is a fascinating place—there are always new things coming up and every time anyone thinks that he or she has seen it all they never have. I am certainly one of those. Like the Deputy Prime Minister I felt that the Standing Orders Committee went very well—chaired by yourself Mr Speaker. I thought it was a good constructive committee and I too join with the Deputy Prime Minister to recommend that we accept the recommendations in the report.