Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

The difficulty—and the member for Cunningham can resume her seat; we're not going to have a separate conference on the matter. I'm prepared to hear from the Manager of Opposition Business, and I'm prepared to hear from the Leader of the House. We're not going to go into committee on this, for heaven's sake.

The Leader of the House makes the point that it's not within the Deputy Prime Minister's responsibilities, and he's completely right. The problem, though, is that the previous question referred to a statement that had been made. And, on reflection, after having ruled that out of order, I thought I should allow it. This is a follow-up question relating to that statement, where the question's asked. It's not up to me to judge a view of the question but just whether it's in order. And I think that part of the question is in order, and of course it's completely within the standing orders in the Practice for the Deputy Prime Minister to answer it in whatever way he sees fit.

See this speech in context