Chauvel Charles: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Chauvel Charles: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:658;Page:7179] 
2. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee 
: How many submissions were received by the committee on the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill? 
CRAIG FOSS (Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee) 
: 
 Three hundred and seventy-two. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Did he receive any requests for all submissions to be heard in one day; if so whom did he receive the request from? 
CRAIG FOSS 
: Again I say all correspondence received by the committee is part of the committee while that item is an open item of business in the committee. 
Charles Chauvel 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is a slightly different point of order from the one that I raised last time. I did not confine my question to members of the public making requests of the member. I asked: “Did he receive any requests for all submissions to be heard in one day; if so whom did he receive the request from?”. It is an important question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Again I say that as I understand the Standing Orders if there was an exchange going on within the committee or in other words if the member is alluding to the possibility that a member of the committee was involved—if it was not a member of the public I presume the other possibilities are that the member is referring to a member of the committee or to another member of this House—and if the committee has been written to then the chair’s response is appropriate. If the matter is internal to the committee then he is not a liberty to divulge that to the House yet. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Just by way of clarification of your ruling does that imply that once the committee has reported to the House it would be perfectly in order to ask this question again? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: As I understand the situation the business would no longer be before the select committee. I am sure it will not be difficult for the member to think up all sorts of ways of reporting what went on at the committee himself in debates following the report back of the bill. 
Charles Chauvel 
: The difficulty that I have and I am genuinely trying to seek your assistance on a way forward is that if I cannot get an answer from the member as to whether anybody be that person someone who is external to the committee—a member of the public—or a member of this House has communicated with him about committee business while the committee is deliberating or has a matter before it and if I cannot ask him about that once the committee has reported because it is functus officio then the House may not know the answer to a very important question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: As I understand the situation the House will have plenty of opportunity to know what went at the committee when the House debates the matter. There will be plenty of opportunity for debate about what went on at the committee at that point but the questions that can possibly be asked of the chairs of committees are very restricted. I think the member will accept that he has set himself a significant challenge in relation to finding supplementary questions to the particular questions that he has put down today. They are very restricted and I think the chair of the committee has answered that supplementary question appropriately. I advise the member to go on to member’s question No. 3.