Smith Lockwood: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Smith Lockwood: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:674;Page:20279] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The interesting thing is that the logic of our Standing Orders is such as to enable the decisions of the Committee and the decisions of the House to be sensible decisions. That is the objective of most of these Standing Orders. In the case of the closure motion it is sensible that the Chair have the discretion not to accept it and that is why a closure motion can be moved more than once. But once the House has made its decision that is the end of the matter. With respect to reporting progress and sitting again presently it makes sense for that to be possible to be moved subsequently because circumstances may change so that the House can make a decision whether it wants to review that decision. 
The dilemma I have about this particular motion where the House has voted to accept the report from the Committee and the bill has been set down for next sitting day is that that is a clear decision of the House. When members keep attempting to move to report progress again when in this particular case the decision not to accept the report has been made it is difficult for me to argue that I should make a ruling that enables this House to go on as many times as there are members who wish to move that the Committee report progress even though the Committee may have made a decision. 
I have to think about whether if I rule one way or another I would be offending the ability of the House to carry on its business or constraining the Opposition’s opportunity on members’ day as the member suggests to debate the matters that members wish to debate. What I am inclined to do is to make a ruling—on the understanding though that the Standing Orders Committee will address this issue. 
I think that we need to address this issue to make sure that we do not get into this hole again. But I think that I should rule at the moment on the basis of our current Standing Orders—but I accept this is purely a Speaker’s ruling; there is no Standing Order that says this—that where the Committee makes a decision with respect to reporting progress that is the end of the matter for that period of consideration of that bill. It is not the end of the matter subsequently but the possibility of fine-tuning that a bit would be to allow for a further motion once further business has been transacted. For example if the Committee arrives at a new clause in the bill or a new part in the bill then the issue could come up again because further consideration further decisions have been made by the Committee. The motion then would not be negating or attempting to negate a decision the Committee has already made because the Committee has transacted further business so the circumstances have changed. I will hear the Hon Rick Barker before I rule finally on the matter but I fully accept that I have no clear Standing Order on which I can base the ruling. I am trying to find a sensible way forward that does not bring the House into disrepute.