Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Monday the Manager of Opposition Business raised as a matter of privilege whether the Prime Minister had deliberately misled the House such as would constitute a contempt of the House. The claim arises from the Prime Minister's response to a question from the Leader of the Opposition during question time last Thursday, 15 August, in which the Prime Minister referred to statements of the ASIO director-general. Deliberately misleading the House is one of the matters that can be found to be a contempt. A claim of deliberately misleading is a very serious one, and, rightly, there should be prima facie evidence that the House has been misled and that the misleading has been deliberate. In addition, to amount to a contempt, the action would need to amount to, or be intended or likely to amount to, an improper interference with the free exercise by the House of its functions. Although different in its particulars, this complaint has elements in common with other claims that have been made that a member has deliberately misled the House.

I have examined the Hansard of the relevant period of last Thursday's question time. The essence of the relevant exchange at that time was that the Leader of the Opposition said the Prime Minister had misquoted the ASIO director-general and that the Prime Minister said he read out three different quotes of the director-general. The Speaker's role in this matter is to determine whether priority over other business should be given to a motion for referral of a matter to the Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests. In order to grant precedence in such a matter, the Speaker would need to see evidence that a member misled the House and that they did so intentionally. On the evidence available to me, it's not clear that a prima facie case has been made out such as would cause me to give precedence to a motion to refer the matter to the committee.