The House: A Question Time scavenger hunt

"Arguments, inferences, imputations, epithets, ironical expressions, or expressions of opinion." It could be a lost verse from the Rodgers and Hammerstein song which lists "a few of my favourite things".

In fact it's a partial list of things that questions during Parliament's Question Time cannot include. There are also some must-haves, and separate requirements for answers.

Last week, when discussing the banned language list, Parliament's Speaker Gerry Brownlee said: "I think if you were to apply the full extent of all of the provisions under this Standard Order, there'd be very few questions that could be asked in the House."

I suspect that Brownlee was employing a little hyperbole in his refusal of a complaint from New Zealand First MP Shane Jones, but it got me thinking. Just how many of the rules are broken in your average Question Time? It surely calls for a scavenger hunt.

Roles, rules and expectations

Sometimes on RNZ's The House we give a lot of attention to Question Time - especially to the rules that govern it. Yet Oral Questions are the most public forum for one of the Parliament's key roles - keeping a check on government, so they are deserving of some scrutiny too.

Done well, Question Time is much more than political theatre. Ideally, it is when our representatives sharply evaluate our rulers, and our rulers honestly defend their actions. Arguably it is not often done well.

Over the decades, in an attempt to force successive governments and parliaments to live up to the purpose of Question Time (and of Parliament), MPs have laid out some exacting rules and expectations.

In our scavenger hunt, we ran out of time on-air before we exhausted examples of rules being broken. We found inferences, epithets, irony, discreditable references, opinions and more. You can listen to the audio version of this story for examples. We had no time to consider the compulsory elements of questions and answers, one of which is an actual answer.

The actual rules and practice

Below are some of Parliament's rules for what should or should not occur during both oral questions and answers. We have omitted the rules for processes, and focused on content.

For more detail on the process, see the Standing Orders.

To explore various Speakers' interpretations of the above rules you can read Speakers' Rulings.

For a discussion of actual practice see Parliament's 'bible', see Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand.

388 Questions to Ministers

Questions may be put to a Minister relating to-

(a) public affairs with which the Minister is officially connected, or

(b) proceedings in the House or any matter of administration for which the Minister is responsible.

389 Questions to other members

(1) Questions may be put to a member who is not a Minister or the Speaker, relating to any bill, motion, or public matter connected with the business of the House, of which the member has charge.

(2) Written questions may be put to the Speaker relating to any matter of administration for which the Speaker is responsible.

390 Content of questions

(1) Questions must be concise and not contain-

(a) statements of facts and names of persons unless they are strictly necessary to render the question intelligible and can be authenticated, or

(b) arguments, inferences, imputations, epithets, ironical expressions, or expressions of opinion, or

(c) discreditable references to the House or any member of Parliament or any offensive or unparliamentary expression.

(2) Questions must not seek a legal opinion.

(4) Questions must not refer to proceedings in committee at meetings closed to the public until those proceedings are reported to the House or, subject to Standing Order 116, to a matter awaiting or under adjudication in, or suppressed by an order of, any New Zealand court.

396 Content of replies

(1) An answer that seeks to address the question asked must be given if it can be given consistently with the public interest.

(2) The reply to any question must be concise and confined to the subject matter of the question asked, and not contain-

(a) statements of facts and the names of any persons unless they are strictly necessary to answer the question, or

(b) arguments, inferences, imputations, epithets, or ironical expressions, or

(c) discreditable references to the House or any member of Parliament or any offensive or unparliamentary expression.

(3) Replies shall not refer to proceedings in committee at meetings closed to the public that have not yet been reported to the House or, subject to Standing Order 116, to a matter awaiting or under adjudication in, or suppressed by an order of, any New Zealand court.

397 Supplementary questions

(1) At the discretion of the Speaker, a supplementary question may be asked by any member to elucidate or clarify a matter raised in an oral question or in an answer given to a question.

With the rules above, you are now equipped to have a Question Time scavenger hunt yourself, or maybe even play Question Time bingo. Happy hunting.

*RNZ's The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament's Office of the Clerk.