Parker DavidRESOURCE LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILLReferral to Local Government and Environment CommitteeHon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My point of order relates to the next Government notice of motion. I have a number of points to make in support of the proposition that this motion should I think be debatable rather than be a non-debatable motion.There is a very unusual situation. This bill has been reported back from the Local Government and Environment Committee for a second reading and the proposal by the Government according to the notice of motion is to refer it back to the select committee rather than allow it to have a second reading. There is no provision in the Standing Orders covering this situation—I think everyone accepts that there is no provision in the Standing Orders—and as a consequence in order for the Government to not have the bill heard at second reading and hear the views of parliamentarians on it and get it back to the select committee it has got to get the agreement of this House for an abnormal process. My submission is that particularly in the circumstances of this case that should not happen without the House debating the circumstances of it and whether it should happen.When this was put on the Order Paper earlier in the day I went to see the Clerk and the Clerk gave me two reasons as to why he thought that this could be done or should be done without debate. The first of those reasons was relying on Standing Order 204 which says that in respect of proceedings at select committees they are to apply the rules of conduct of proceedings in a Committee of the whole House unless subject to a Standing Order to the contrary. With respect to the Clerk I do not think there is any help for the House in respect of Standing Order 204 because Standing Order 204 is talking about what happens at select committees not about how things get to select committees. And so Mr Speaker I would submit to you that Standing Order 204 is of complete irrelevance to the decision as to whether there should be a debate on this motion.The second point I would make is that at the moment if this motion proceeds in this way the House will have had absolutely no explanation as to what has happened over the last 11 months. The Opposition parties will have had no opportunity to talk to the merits of this issue at all. You will be aware from the records of the select committee—and I am not in any way at risk of contempt in this because the minutes are out and the conduct of the proceedings last week is clear—that the select committee minority the Opposition parties was blocked from having any report back to Parliament as to what has happened. We were further blocked from providing a minority view. If there is no opportunity to debate this we cannot put any of those points before the House and we are placed in the invidious position despite this very unusual process of the House being none the wiser as to what has happened.Two more points—in respect of the other two points that the Clerk made to me he said that a precedent could be drawn from Standing Order 311 which deals with recommittal to the Committee of the whole House in a third reading. Of course where that happens the House and the members immediately have the opportunity to address the House in that recommittal to the Committee—we have the opportunity to debate these issues. If this goes straight back to the select committee we have absolutely no opportunity so I do not think that Standing Order 311 is of any assistance either.The reference that the Clerk made to the only precedent that he was aware of the Food Bill—I was not even aware of that precedent until he raised it and I thank him for raising it—is not at all comparable to this situation. That Food Bill had sat on the Order Paper—from my memory it might even have been years—and then there was a new Supplementary Order Paper put to the select committee for new submissions. Everyone in Parliament agreed that it should go back to the select committee and so it was not a motion that was debated. That is not at all comparable. If agreement over a non-controversial issue such as that one is taken to be a precedent for how controversial issues are handled then we will have poor order in this House.The final point is that in the absence of a Standing Order setting out how these things ought to be dealt with—and there is no Standing Order—and in the absence of a Speaker's ruling on the issue the House should then be given the opportunity to debate the matter so that the House can decide how to proceed upon debate rather than the executive being given an easy option.I therefore ask you Mr Speaker to reconsider the issue as to whether in this instance this motion from the Government to recommit this bill to the select committee 11 months after it first went there should be debated.