Matter of Privilege

Matter of Privilege

The SPEAKER (10:31): Before I call Mr Clerk, I wish to speak on the matter of privilege regarding the Attorney-General on the Sentencing Act. I make the following statement with regard to the matter of privilege raised by the member for Enfield in this house yesterday. However, before addressing that matter, I wish to outline the significance of privilege as it relates to the house and its members. As I have said before, privilege is not a device by which members or any other person can seek to pursue matters that can be addressed by debate or settled by the vote of the house on a substantive motion.

As we have seen, the test in McGee in Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand, in my view makes the test for whether or not a matter is a matter of privilege by defining it as a matter that can 'genuinely be regarded as tending to impede or obstruct the house in the discharge of its duties'.

Generally speaking, any act or omission which obstructs or impedes the house in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any member or officer of such house in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such a result, may be treated as a contempt and therefore be considered a matter of privilege, even though there is no precedent of the offence.

I refer to the matter raised by the member for Enfield in relation to an answer given by the Attorney-General to a question in the house yesterday. More specifically, in response to the question asked by the member for Croydon concerning the Sentencing Act, the Attorney answered by saying:

—we argued, from the opposition position at the time, the importance of ensuring that home detention should not be available to murderers, terrorists and people who commit serious sexual offences. For two years, the then government made it very clear that they would not agree to that.

The member for Enfield alleges that the Attorney-General's answer has misled the house. The member for Enfield stated:

The member has actually been misrepresenting, making a false statement to the house about the law.

I have had the opportunity to read the whole answer provided by the Attorney-General to the question asked by the member for Croydon. In the context of the entire answer provided by the Attorney-General, it is clear to me that the Attorney-General in her answer was referring to the opposition's position at the time and not making a statement on the current state of the law.

Therefore, in the Chair's opinion, this is not a matter of privilege for the reason I stated above. In the Chair's view, to apply the test, the matter could not 'genuinely be regarded as tending to impede or obstruct the house in the discharge of its duties'.

Therefore, I also decline to give the matter the precedence that would allow the member for Enfield to immediately pursue the matter. However, my opinion does not prevent any member from pursuing the matter by way of substantive motion.