Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Just going back to Senator Bernardi's original point of order, which has not been dealt with by Senator Wong—Senator Wong was referring to other issues that were not raised by Senator Bernardi, around topics of questions—Senator Bernardi's point of order went to the proper construction of supplementary questions. I refer you, Mr President, to Odgers, which says:

On 14 April 1986 President McClelland made a statement concerning the use of supplementary questions.

He said:

Since that time—

the time of the introduction of supplementary questions—

successive Presidents have consistently ruled that supplementary questions are appropriate only for the purposes of elucidating information arising from the original question and answer.

I put to you, Mr President, that this question has not satisfied that condition and therefore should be ruled out of order.