Smith Lockwood: Points of Order — Questions for Oral Answer—Transfer of Questions 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Smith Lockwood: Points of Order — Questions for Oral Answer—Transfer of Questions 
[Sitting date: 12 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5122. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have allowed this point of order to take some time because I think it is a serious issue for the House. I think the Hon Trevor Mallard has raised an interesting dilemma for the House about question time. The fact that New Zealand does not have a Prime Minister’s question time makes our question time a little different from say that of the British Parliament. The dilemma that we all face in this—and I think the honourable Leader of the House referred to this in his response to the point of order—is that where a question is whether the Prime Minister stands by statements and other Ministers’ statements say in relation to a specific issue if the Government is assuming that that issue is of the main interest to the questioner the risk is that if it stays with the Prime Minister the Prime Minister in answering will say that the member should put down a question to the relevant Minister. That is why I think the Government is not trying to in my understanding escape accountability in trying to make sure the substance of the issue can best be covered by the relevant Minister. 
But I accept that it may not be that way. The questioner may in fact wish to be pursuing something very much specific to the Prime Minister’s statement but that will not automatically be obvious from the question. That is the dilemma. The Government is absolutely entitled to transfer a question unless it would be anathema to accountability for that to be the case. The member has raised that point and I agree with him that were the Prime Minister to be the only person who could possibly have information on a certain issue then the question should not be transferred. Where an opinion is being sought the bar is not quite at the same level I would suggest because an opinion is never quite as important an accountability issue as where the Prime Minister is being questioned on whether or not something happened. And if the Prime Minister is the only person who could possibly know that then it would be contrary to accountability in this House for such a question to be transferred. 
We are in something of a dilemma. As Speaker I am in something of a dilemma in handling this. I absolutely support the Government’s right to transfer questions. What I would like to suggest for the longer term perhaps is that the Standing Orders Committee give some thought to whether or not this House would like to set aside any time during a parliamentary session for questions to the Prime Minister. Other Parliaments do have them. That may get over this problem. That is something I leave in members’ minds. I cannot see us easily resolving the issue with our current Standing Orders because the Speaker cannot possibly know the intention of the questioner when they put the question down—whether they intend to go into the substance of a matter or to stick just with the opinion as to whether the Prime Minister stands by any statements. Opinions certainly are not matters that would prevent a question from being transferred. There is no way in my view that we should allow the House to set a standard that a question cannot be transferred just when an opinion is being sought.