Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

I hope that comment was not directed at the chair. People should be very careful if they are conversing with their colleagues that they do it in a much lower sotto voce, because sometimes it can be taken inappropriately. I have ruled on the question, because it goes beyond the intent of the standing order. By people's own admissions the fact that the last two words were 'why not' is not something that a chair could be asked.

Opposition members interjecting—

Order! If you want to read your precedents and you want to listen carefully to what I have now added—and I am not, given the circumstances, offering an opportunity to rephrase the question—if people go away and, based on what they believe to be precedents, they will understand that a question to a chair of a committee is a very narrow question. Regrettably—and I am not having a go at the Leader of the Nationals—like questioners and responders, they now think that the 45 seconds and the four minutes are the space to be filled. Often it would be much better if, in both cases, they were much shorter than those time periods.

See this speech in context