Points of Order — Committee of the Whole House—Chair’s Acceptance of Closure MotionsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePoints of Order — Committee of the Whole House—Chair’s Acceptance of Closure Motions[Sitting date: 18 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4557. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Points of OrderCommittee of the Whole House—Chair’s Acceptance of Closure MotionsCHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I do not have anything for the Leader of the House but I do have this point of order that I would like to raise with you and ask you to consider it and give some considered deliberation to it before coming back to the House. It relates to a matter that arose in the House last night during the Committee stage debate on the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill a debate that took 36 minutes.During the Committee stage leave was given for clauses 2 to 4 to be taken as one debate with separate questions to be put at the end of the debate. After 36 minutes of the debate with speakers on all sides of the Chamber seeking the call the Chair presiding over the Committee put the question to the vote as one question and the debate was then finished. There was no closure motion before the Committee at the time and as I indicated there were members across the Chamber seeking the call at the time. I would like you to consider the rules around this matter because my understanding has certainly been that there are only two ways in which a Committee stage debate can end. One is where no one seeks the call; the other is where the Chair takes a decision to accept the closure motion and the Committee decides to end the debate. I would like you to reflect on that and make it clear that that is the case.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I would urge you not to make a ruling that in any way constrains Chairs of the Committee over and above the rules that we currently have. One of the things that was an interesting feature of last night’s debate was the number of times in which the presiding officers had to call speakers back to the bill. In other words the contributions in many cases were straying well wide of the content of either the clauses being debated or the bill itself. At some point the Chair of the Committee should have the authority or the ability to make a judgment that says: “Actually members have said all they can on this. We are now into repetition or new material and so we should put the vote.” I think it would be unfortunate and it would somewhat neuter the Chair if there were to be any stronger ruling about that particular matter.CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): The Leader of the House is correct in one respect in that the Chair should always have the prerogative to end the contribution of any members where they are infringing on the rules of the House. In this case however it was ending an entire debate where leave had been given—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That point has been made.Ron Mark: Speaking to the point of order.Mr SPEAKER: Is this in regard to the same matter?RON MARK (NZ First): Yes it is. I was present in the Chamber during that particular moment in time. My recollection of the evening and no doubt you will acquaint yourself with the Hansardin your deliberations is that that was not actually the case. In fact the Chair was encouraging people to be more creative and bring new material in. But there was not a caution by him that things had become repetitive—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I thank all three members for their contributions. As Mr Hipkins asked at the onset I will now go back and have a good look at what happened and I will come back to the House accordingly.