Hughes Darren: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled 
Hughes Darren: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled 
[Volume:660;Page:9208] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 Speaking to the point of order— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will hear the Hon Darren Hughes briefly and that will be the end of the matter. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Certainly Mr Speaker. I will address just two very quick points that the Chair reported back to you. One was the ability of members located in seats other than those they have been individually allocated to move a closure motion which had been a matter contested previously. The member was speaking from a block of seats allocated to his party but not his individual seat. The Chair has ruled on that and given you his explanation. There was also a question on the third point the Chair raised with you about the ability of a member under the new rules to move multiple closure motions within his or her allocation of four calls. The closure motion is treated as a call. Members can move up to the maximum number of calls—four—but it is treated as a speech. There was a question which was not answered by the Chair as to what happens in the case where there has been a mixture of calls—that is a member participates substantively in the debate using one of his or her calls as a speech to discuss the substance of the legislation then uses subsequent calls on a procedural matter in respect of a closure motion. It would be useful to get some clear guidance from you on that. 
On the second point the middle point which Mr Mallard has spoken to you about he recalled his own experience and Ms Mackey has offered hers through him. In fact this very point occurred early in the term of this Parliament when we were in urgency before Christmas 2008 and members were unable to get the correct form of words to put the closure motion. All of those motions were not accepted by each of the three Chairs in the debate. That was quite a feature of what happened at that point. The reason why I think it is important is that Standing Order 132(1) is one of the few Standing Orders where the precise form of words is prescribed in quotation marks for members of the House to follow. As it happens there are two examples on that page the other one being Standing Order 129(1) on adjournment of debate which Mr Mallard referred to earlier. There are very few motions where the exact form of words is prescribed for us to follow. 
Mr Speaker I think that if you uphold what the Chair has said that will overturn what has been a longstanding practice that members sadly have to learn the hard way. It has happened to nearly everybody—not getting the form of words right. Members say either “Thank you.” or “Finally I’ve been called.” or some other quite innocent phrase is used but at the point that those very tight words in Standing Order 132 are not used it becomes a speech. 
Finally there appears to be some disagreement. The contribution of the chief Government whip indicated that he did not believe that Mr Bennett had used extra words. Of course that is a matter of debate because that is certainly what was heard on this side of the Chamber. The Chair himself in reporting to you Mr Speaker said that one of the reasons he had accepted the closure motion was that the member had used a courtesy. As nice and kind as that is it is not what is permitted under Standing Order 132.