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House of Representatives                                Ch 16                                                 p 580

Matters involving legislation

It has been the practice of the House to allow matters involving legislation to be discussed, provided that no other criterion is transgressed. In 1967, however, the Speaker privately ruled that certain words in a proposed matter were out of order. The matter proposed was:

The Government’s failure to maintain the purchasing power of repatriation payments and general benefits and its abuse of legislative processes to prevent debate and voting on the adequacy of Repatriation entitlements.

The italicised words were ruled out of order on the grounds that their primary purpose was to draw attention to the way in which the Repatriation Bill 1967 had been drafted with a restricted title which limited debate to pensions payable to children of a deceased member of the Forces. When the bill was debated at the second reading, an amendment dealing with a wider range of repatriation matters had been ruled out of order as not being relevant to the bill. ¹ A motion of dissent from the ruling was negatived. The words were also ruled out of order as, by inference, there was a criticism of the Chair, and a reflection upon the vote (current standing order 74) which negatived the motion of dissent. It might also be noted that the wording proposed was deficient in that it tended to raise more than one matter. The matter was submitted and discussed in its amended form. ²

VP 1967-68/211; H.R. Deb. (27.9.67) 1356-8.

VP 1967-68/218.