Donald Rod: Estimates Debate —  Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Donald Rod: Estimates Debate —  Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7281] 
ROD DONALD (Musterer—Green) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. It is a matter of some concern that I wish to raise. There are two parts to it. 
I have just come down to the Chamber to do the last hour of duty for the Green MPs only to discover that of the 36 minutes that we had been allocated for this estimates debate we have so far received only 22 minutes’ debating time. So we are about to be short-changed by 14 minutes—[ 
Interruption 
] I fully appreciate that and I was going to come to it. My concern is that there was a Business Committee agreement at the outset of this process which all parties agreed to. There was a time allocation submitted by David Benson-Pope. We respected that agreement—that we would get 36 minutes in this debate. We allocated our members to speak to the votes they wished to speak to. In three of our cases members wanted to speak to the votes of Ministers who are lower down in the order—Mr Mark Burton and Mr Paul Swain twice. I now find that with this debate due to finish in less than 15 minutes’ time our last three MPs will not have the opportunity to speak and I think that is grossly unfair because an agreement was reached and that agreement will now be broken. 
Secondly there seems to be a perverse incentive in this place that if people behave well they actually get penalised. I think this is the first point of order that the Greens have raised in this whole 8-hour debate yet we are the party that proportionately will suffer most because of the time running out. I acknowledge that parties like New Zealand First are also missing out—and even Labour is missing out. The reverse seems to be the case if parties perpetually raise points of order; they end up with extra time. One party in this House—ACT—has had 9 minutes more in this debate than was agreed by the Business Committee. 
So there are two things that I seek from you. The first is that you take some time to discuss with the Speaker—I do not think it quite warrants our recalling the Speaker at this stage—how the situation was allowed to happen and to look for a remedy to the situation so that parties actually get their fair time in the estimates debate. For that matter Ministers need to have a fair chance to talk to the estimates for their votes. One possible solution would be for you to subtract from a party’s time allocation the time it has spent raising points of order during the debate—if the debate has to remain a fixed-time debate. The second thing I ask of you is an immediate remedy which is that this debate be extended by at least the 9 minutes that one party has received above its allocation and preferably by the amount of time necessary to enable those parties that have not had their full allocation to be able to take up that allocation. 
So I seek leave for this debate to be extended to give sufficient time for those parties that have been short-changed because other parties have taken points of order to have their fair share. Perhaps I could invite the chief Government whip to advise us of how much time that would involve. 
Hon MARK BURTON (Deputy Leader of the House) 
: 
 Briefly I want to say I really sympathise with the member over the issues he has raised. He was not able to be in the Chamber earlier when a good deal of the time was consumed by points of order. It is a matter of deep regret that we did indeed lose so much time. Unfortunately that was not because of the breaking of a formal agreement of the Business Committee. I think that because tonight we have experienced one party showing total disregard for the goodwill on which relations in this Parliament have to be based agreements reached in good faith on the part of some are no longer enough and I think in future we will have to have formal agreements by the Business Committee that are ratified in the House before such debates start. It is a matter of regret that we cannot agree to the leave that the member is seeking. To do so would further reward the bad behaviour that got us to this point unfortunately and further delay the business of the House.