Carter David; Brownlee Gerry; Parker DavidRt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Mr Chairman I wondered whether you would give me some assistance by referring to Standing Orders—Standing Orders not Speakers' rulings—as to how you've conducted these amendments. What you ruled was that the first amendment associated with Queenstown was in order. Now you are concluding that every other amendment for every other geographical position in New Zealand is not to be put to this committee to vote on because the Queenstown amendment was lost. I say to you sir that what you're saying is New Zealand is effectively homogenous—that every part of New Zealand is exactly the same. So if you could help me—I didn't want to interrupt you as you proceeded through negating those amendments but if you could take me to the Standing Orders that are relevant I would certainly appreciate it.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I thank the right honourable member. I would refer the committee to Standing Order 307 and in particular 307(4): The chairperson at his or her discretion may put a single question on a group of amendments if—(a) the amendments stand in the name of the same member: (b) the amendments lend themselves to being grouped on account of their content or subject-matter or because they form a single alternative proposition: [or] (c) grouping of the amendments is necessary to enable the committee's effective consideration of the bill."Rt Hon David Carter: Mr Chair—CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I'll just finish. That's the Standing Order that I have applied in this instance.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It's very important that Standing Orders are appropriately interpreted. The genesis of this particular Standing Order comes from a bill that was in the House in the late 1990s early 2000s that related to the Employment Contracts Act changes. In that case there were a large number of amendments that were—my apologies; it was late 1999 and it was the Accident Compensation Act—on the Table at the time that affected the commencement date. It was a ruling by the then Speaker once he was recalled to the House that a date no matter what it was could not be voted on again if a later date had been accepted by the House.Now the difference here is that we're not talking about a date we're not talking about a number and we're not talking about a commencement day on which the bill comes into enforcement; we're talking about various geographic areas in New Zealand. The members who have put up their tabled amendments believe that the residents of those areas would be benefited by their exclusion from the Act. Now we already know that the Government has sought to exclude certain projects from the Act so it can't be unreasonable for the committee to wish to exclude certain areas of the country from the Act. To simply read them all out and say "Well they are now excluded." I think is an absolute abuse of the provisions that are laid down in the Standing Order and in fact any interpretation of the Speakers' rulings and I think it would require a new Speaker's ruling.Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Trade and Export Growth): With respect to the Hon Gerry Brownlee I think the member confused two issues. Where a vote is taken on a particular amendment to a provision that effectively overrides later proposed amendments the later proposed amendments are ruled out of order—that's not the situation here. The other situation arose not from the Employment Contracts Act but as a consequence of a change to Standing Orders made after the Auckland City legislation where the then Opposition delayed the process of the bill by a number of days by presenting a number of amendments which were required to be voted on and that were virtually identical in substance except a date or a locality changed in a similar way. Now what the Chairman has ruled on here—as I heard his ruling—is that in his view according to Standing Orders having dealt with the Hamish Walker amendment all of the others were identical in form except for changing the number for the numeric threshold and the district to which it is applied. He has in accordance with Standing Orders found that those other ones are out of order.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I'm going to rule on the first point of order.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well there'll be another one coming.Rt Hon David Carter: Point of order. I want to make a further—ADRIAN RURAWHE: Yeah I'm hearing you both gentlemen but I'm going to rule on the first point of order thank you. There is a way forward on this and I think the Hon Gerry Brownlee mentioned that in wanting—or maybe asking—for a new Speaker's ruling. I've applied the rules as I see them in this instance and I believe that that Standing Order does apply in this case. The way forward if the members wish to do so would be to test my ruling with the Speaker.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): Mr Chair that's probably the right thing to do. The difficulty for the House of course is that this original ruling in here was largely due to a series of amendments that were laid on the Table at the time by none other than the Rt Hon Trevor Mallard. However I move That we recall the Speaker.Motion agreed to."