Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, in speaking to the motion to take note of your statement I just want to raise another issue, one which I do not think quite arrived today from what has been said of the way this went—although I have not had the advantage of reading the Hansard. I think that someone was suggesting that if a senator sought leave to ask a question and leave was denied—and I am perhaps asking that you or the Procedure Committee might pursue this—then that senator has not asked a question and would then be entitled to then ask a question. In the instance this morning it was a question of the minister. So what I am just raising—and as I say I do not think this quite got to that although I, like many others, was confused with the various points of order and the rulings on them at the time—is that I do think it is worth getting a clear indication that if leave had been sought to ask a question, and if leave was denied, then a question had not been asked and it would not preclude that senator from then asking another question. I say that on the basis of your comments on the issue at hand: that you have an order and, if someone asks a question or does not ask a question that is ruled out of order it then passes on to the next one on the list. I think that would be inappropriate in the circumstances that where leave was sought, leave was denied—which means no question has been asked—and therefore that same senator would not be in breach of your ordered form if he then asked a question that did not need leave.