Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

I will try to predict which standing order the Manager of Opposition Business was rising on. I suppose it was the belief that I am obliged to recognise people approaching the dispatch box for a point of order. The wording in the standing orders is ‘may’. As I tried to explain yesterday, when I believe there is a chance that the minister is concluding their answer, I allow that to happen. I just would like to make the comment—and some keen observers might like to think about this and not just shake their heads—that I have found that every time I allow a point of order, as I said last week, for every action there appears to be a reaction and we spend a lot more time going through the motions again. I believe that it suits the convenience of the House to allow this, because I can only believe that the defence of these points of orders is because people are trying to make a point rather than a point of order. The member for Kingston.

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