For any of Parliament's speakers, the daily Question Time is a tricky horse to manage, let alone tame. Every Speaker brings a different approach, the current Speaker is trying riding with no reins at all.
Every Parliamentary Speaker brings a different approach to refereeing the House, especially Question Time. Some Speakers take a light hand, others try to wrest control. The current Speaker is trying something different. He is almost entirely hands-off.
Question Time is shorter, louder and more chaotic than it has been for a while; but is it doing its job?
Speaker Adrian Rurawhe.
Letting the House run free
Taking over from Trevor Mallard as Parliament's Speaker, Adrian Rurawhe had a new approach.
"Since taking over as Speaker of this House, I've taken on board the commentary from most of the parties in the House that they want a more robust Question Time," he says. "It's really up to this House to decide what it wants."
Trevor Mallard was pretty exacting. His strict control of Question Time likely aggrieved the Opposition. But he was also unusually strict on ministers' answers to written questions, which benefited the Opposition.
Mallard would intervene to rule questions 'out of order' as soon as he realised they were veering outside the rules; Adrian Rurawhe allows almost any question to be asked in full and sometimes leaves it to the ministers to decide whether to answer it.
"I have allowed questions whether they're out of order or not. If it's the Minister's answer that she doesn't have responsibility, then that's the answer," Rurawhe says. "If the House wants to tolerate out of order questions and address them, they can."
It's a simple approach but it has drawbacks. Question Time has increasingly become a contest of political statements couched as questions and answers, but with much less information.
The rules
Question Time has many rules. Questions must not include arguments, inferences, imputations, epithets, ironical expressions or opinions. You can't make claims that can't be authenticated. You can't suggest misconduct, dishonesty or corruption. Many of those things now turn up daily. Rurawhe is letting us judge them ourselves.
"I have allowed the questions to be asked and members of the public will make their own judgments around them," he says.
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