Assembly Procedure

I received an inquiry from a member of the public during the week relating to procedure on questions, questions on notice and adjournment; and the inquirer suggested “Perhaps it would be a good time to publish this information anew?”

Readers may find my response of interest and I quote it here.

“Questions. Questions without notice are just that - they are asked openly in the House and unless the member asking the question has given the Minister prior indication that he will be asking a specific question, the Minister would not have notice of the question. Questions without notice do not appear on the Notice Paper. As an aside there is no obligation on a Minister to answer a question, whether it is on notice or without notice, though for political reasons it would be unusual for a Minister to refuse to do so. There are times that a Minister may not know the answer to a question without notice and often the Minister will say "I will take that question on notice". When this happens there is an expectation that the member will then put his question in writing and lodge it with the Clerk for it to appear on the Notice Paper for the next sitting.

“Questions on notice means that a member lodges a question in writing with the Clerk to the Assembly; this can happen at any time between sittings with the deadline for lodgement being 4 pm on the Thursday before the sitting at which the member seeks the question be answered. Questions on Notice then appear on the Notice Paper which is published in the Islander and on Norfolk Online by the Clerk on the weekend prior to the sitting day.

“Whilst by convention Questions/Questions on notice are a facility available to Members of the Parliament to seek information on issues with which they may have a concern, nevertheless it is not uncommon for members to ask questions of Ministers on behalf of members of the public who have requested they do so; but the name of the member of the public would not be mentioned.

Adjournment. Adjournment of debate is the term used when a matter on the notice paper is to be adjourned until a later day; the rules require that if a member moves a motion of adjournment the Chair must put the motion forthwith without further debate. If the motion is agreed to, debate is so adjourned. If not, debate continues until concluded and the question put - that the motion be agreed to.

A motion to adjourn the House till another day is different. By convention the motion for the adjournment of the House is a facility open to members to use to raise a broad range of issues.” (Unquote)

Parliamentary documents can be found on www.info.gov.nf under the heading Assembly Matters. If there are matters of parliamentary procedure that readers would like me to discuss in Your Parliament Your Voice do send me an email with your query to speaker@assembly.gov.nf.

Issued from the Office of the Speaker on 20 May 2011