Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

Before members leave, I want to make a brief statement with respect to the Federation Chamber. It's just for the information of members. I've had a number of queries.

Some members will be aware that last night, during the grievance debate, and again this morning, during constituency statements, a number of closure motions were moved in the Federation Chamber, under standing order 80, which were not agreed on the voices. Under standing order 188, unresolved questions from the Federation Chamber are reported to the House for resolution. However, by the time the matters could have been dealt with by the House the relevant items of business had concluded.

There are a number of precedents for not proceeding to deal with unresolved questions which have become redundant in such circumstances. I refer members to page 786 of House of Representatives Practiceand to the various examples, provided in the footnotes, of situations where divisions on unresolved questions were not proceeded with. For the information of members, I propose to follow the practice of my predecessors in not proceeding to divisions on these questions.

See this speech in context