Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

No, we're not going to debate the matter. I will give the Leader of the Opposition the benefit of my opinion, because I've been thinking about it through the course of the divisions. Without trying to be difficult, let me go back. There are two things here. A minister or Prime Minister can correct an answer during question time—

Mr Albanese interjecting—

Given we have an audience, I might as well go through it once! I know the bits you know, but I think it's important that other members understand too. A minister or a Prime Minister can correct an answer during question time at the end of question time or between items of business throughout the course of the day. Alternatively—and the Practice does make this clear, and it does use that word—additional or corrected information may be given in writing to the Clerk, in which case it's treated as a question on notice. What that would mean, and I know the Clerk's listening, is that, had that course occurred, and I'm just making this factual point, that would have occurred sometime later—I think on tomorrow's Notice Paper. Can a minister, indeed the Leader of the House or a duty minister, table any document without leave? They can. There is a letter that has come to me that the Leader of the House has decided to table, so that's perfectly in order. When it comes to accusations of deliberately misleading the House, that can only be done by substantive motion. The correction is there as a tabled document.

The only other ways it could have been done, obviously, are in person—and you're telling me for the first time that the Prime Minister has engagements preventing him being here. I don't have his diary, but you've said that that's why your motion stipulated 9.30. The only alternative would have been to have written to the Clerk. That's been done many times before—that's in Practiceand it still would have ended up within this House, albeit at a later time, I have to say. I am just assuming that the letter to me and its being tabled was to provide it as soon as possible. That's what I'm assuming. The Leader of the Opposition is right—normally, members don't write to me—but the document has been tabled. The only point I wanted to make was that I didn't want members to think I'd had a letter and not acted upon. It was literally, as the Leader of the House knows, handed to me about 30 seconds before he tabled it. That's fine, as long as the House has it. My interests are in making sure the House has the information before it.

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