Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Warringah for raising that, and I just want to advise the House and particularly the member for Warringah, who's raised a valid point, of practice on pages 498, 499 and 500 of House of Representatives Practice on the issue of indulgence and how indulgence is granted and given by the Speaker. I won't list all of the reasons and mechanisms of how indulgence is made, but I will quote to the House the following. Indulgence can be granted for:

… the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition to make statements in relation to natural or other disasters, in tribute to deceased persons, or to speak on matters of significance.

When the Prime Minister makes a statement by indulgence on an issue—

or during question time, when the Speaker decides to grant indulgence—

the Leader of the Opposition is commonly also granted indulgence to speak on the same matter. On occasion, indulgence may be extended to a series of Members—for example, after a Member has a statement to the House …

That's usually a statement announcing a significant issue, or, as we've had in examples during my term as Speaker, of national significance on major issues or natural disasters.

In the event that the indulgence is granted, the simplest way to understand it is that it's by convention of the House over a long period of time that everyone is agreeing on the same topic. I will reflect on what the member has said with regard to how indulgence is granted.

On the second issue, regarding personal explanations, that has been a long practice to enable someone to correct the record. It's normally done straight after question time when someone has indicated what the Speaker or an individual has said is not correct, perhaps by the use of a newspaper article or another online source, to then correct the record of what was said about the member.

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