Matter of Privilege

Matter of Privilege, Speaker's Statement

The SPEAKER (16:43): I make the following statement concerning the matter of privilege raised by the Leader of the Opposition in the house on 14 October. Before doing so, I wish briefly to outline the significance of privilege as it relates to the house and its members. Privilege is not a device by which members or any other person may seek to pursue matters that could be better addressed by debate or settled by the vote of the house on a substantive motion.

In Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand, McGee expressed the view that the test for whether a matter is a matter of privilege might be determined by asking whether it could, given its proper construction, 'genuinely be regarded as tending to impede or obstruct the House in the discharge of its duties'. That test has been adopted by other Speakers. I adopt the test.

I turn to the matter raised by the Leader of the Opposition in relation to an answer given by the Premier to a question asked in the house on 14 October. More specifically, the leader asked the following question to the Premier: has the Premier got any plans to dump other election commitments that he took to the 2018 election? The leader explained the question as follows:

InDaily reports today that the Premier has abandoned or dumped his Adelaide to Melbourne bike trail…The bike trail now joins his other signature policies that he took to the election...

The Premier replied by saying:

With regard to the Great Southern Bike Trail, sir, as you may be aware, we took a policy to investigate a trail which we thought would be hugely popular with cyclists and also those people wanting to move between Victoria and South Australia.

The leader suggests that the Premier has misled the house because his answer to a question in the house was purportedly different to the apparent terms of an election policy in 2018. There is nothing to suggest that the Premier's answer to investigate the Great Southern Bike Trail was so inconsistent with the 2018 election policy to invest in developing that cycling trail so as to rise to a matter of privilege. To undertake an investigation is commensurate with a policy of investing in the development of a bike trail, albeit in this instance to abandon it.

Importantly, too, there is nothing to suggest that the Premier deliberately misled the house. In the Chair's view, the matter could not 'genuinely be regarded as tending to impede or obstruct the House in the discharge of its duties'. I therefore decline to give the matter precedence. However, my opinion does not prevent any member from pursuing the matter by way of substantive motion.