Mallard Trevor: Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
Mallard Trevor: Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:669;Page:16138] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 Mr Assistant Speaker the facts as the Chair of the Committee has put them are entirely accurate. I would like to start off by referring you to the Waring case in 1984. I think the Speaker’s ruling in that case is still the current ruling—certainly it is the one that I can remember—as to the precedence for calling members. There is no doubt that there have been some changes in the rules since that time but the rule that was set out quite clearly then was that within a particular side someone who had not had a call on a particular question had precedence over someone who had already had a call on it. 
It is my understanding and I have checked with colleagues that Mr Tremain had previously moved a closure motion. I know that in the past members have been allowed to move such a motion only once but there is now no doubt that members can move it more than once—that rule has changed. If Mr Tremain had been the only person calling from the National Party side then of course this discussion would not be happening but another National member Cam Calder was also calling as loudly as Mr Tremain and very clearly for the call at that time. It is my understanding that he has not had a call. The question then is not so much the acceptability of the Chair accepting the closure motion from Chris Tremain because if he properly had the call there would not be a problem; the question is whether the rules have changed. Clearly it is different for a Minister in the chair; if a Minister is in the chair it has always been the case that that person has precedence and can take multiple calls. 
I accept it is a general question and there have been multiple Speakers’ rulings that the Speaker or the Chair has the discretion as to who gets a call but that has always been within a particular context. The context has changed over a period of time—clearly since MMP and there have been some more—[ 
Interruption 
] Sorry? 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I was talking to my colleagues. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: All right. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: A point of order is being heard. There should be silence. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Clearly there have been some changes and some reordering of the way that things work. Certainly Mr Dunne will remember because the event probably led to our coming to Parliament very soon after the question of the exclusion of the ability of Marilyn Waring to speak on nuclear legislation. The system of putting up a senior colleague was used to stop her but in the Committee stage it had to be a separate senior colleague on each occasion. As Mr Dunne will remember as it happened in the end I think the Hon Richard Prebble gave her— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Yielded. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: —he yielded and she managed to take a call that way. 
The last point I want to make is that I do not want to make any reflection on the Chair of the Committee. He was acting in good faith. Clearly this is an unusual point of order. I have never seen when a closure motion is being sought two members standing together to compete for the call.