Power Simon: Overseas Investment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Power Simon: Overseas Investment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21578] 
SIMON POWER (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I seek your advice in respect of Standing Order 120 which reads: “An amendment must be put into writing signed by the mover and delivered to the Clerk at the Table.” I have just noted that the amendments we voted on in Mr Donald’s name that were moved by Mr Donald have not been signed by Mr Donald. In fact they were signed by Mr Locke. That places us in an unusual position unless the Standing Orders can give us further elucidation on the application of Standing Order 120. I would appreciate that advice. You would see the difficulty which at face value is that the amendments have not been signed by the mover as required by Standing Order 120. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Yes thank you for raising that. That would be the impression one would get. But the explanation is that the amendments were all submitted in writing and all signed on behalf of Mr Donald by Keith Locke and that signature is on the original submission of the amendments. 
SIMON POWER 
: I want to be clear about that Mr Chairperson. The Standing Order very clearly states that the amendment is to be signed by the mover. In this case we have several amendments and the amendments we have just voted on begin: “Rod Donald in Committee to move …”. That makes Rod Donald the mover of those amendments. Mr Donald has not signed those amendments; Mr Locke has. What is the standing of those amendments? 
Rod Donald 
: I think that Mr Power has raised a very interesting point and had the Clerk pointed that out to us at the time the amendments were submitted then we would have taken them off the Table and a member such as Mr Power would not have had the benefit of seeing our amendments in advance of the Committee stage debate. I could have signed them after 2 o’clock when I returned to the House from Dunedin this morning. So perhaps the Chair would like to consider whether the Standing Order intends that it be required that the actual mover sign an amendment or whether another member can sign it. 
In the same way I understand the procedure at the moment is that other members can sign for example the cover sheet for a member’s bill without the actual mover of that bill needing to sign it. For that matter another member can sign off an oral question without the actual member asking the question being needed to sign it. I think the liberal interpretation has been such that other members of one’s own party can sign on one’s behalf and if we change that interpretation for this purpose I think it would create some problems for parties having to find members to sign their own oral questions and other documents when they are not necessarily available to do so. 
SIMON POWER 
: I accept the points made by Mr Donald. I also accept the practicalities of having to deal with the tabling of oral questions and members’ bills when proposing members—I guess that is the right phrase—are not available to annex their signatures. The difficulty we find ourselves in here is that a specific Standing Order relates directly to amendments. It is my submission—and this is not a difficulty for Mr Donald in the sense that it is probably more a difficulty for the Clerk that the matter has got to this point—that it seems on the surface that Standing Order 120 has been breached because the amendments have not been signed by the mover. There is no reference to “the mover or his or her nominee” “his or her appointed person” or “his or her substitute”. The Standing Order is very clear that it is the mover of the amendment who must sign the document. Now I seek guidance from you as to whether we have just wasted 25 minutes of the Committee’s time in voting on amendments that are out of order—in fact that probably breach the Standing Orders by the fact that we even considered them in the first place given that as I say on the face of it Standing Order 120 has been directly breached.