Question of order in MP’s return

AHEAD of today’s state parliament sitting, it is still unclear how sessional orders will be amended to allow independent Clark MP Madeleine Ogilvie to ask questions during question time.

The House of Assembly did not sit last week, but tensions arose when Speaker Sue Hickey allowed Ms Ogilvie to ask a question on the same day she was sworn in earlier this month.

At the time, Greens leader Cassy O’Connor said it was “disrespectful to this place” that Ms Ogilvie had been granted a question against sessional orders.

Ms Ogilvie — elected on a recount triggered by the resignation of former Labor MP Scott Bacon — is the first independent to sit in the lower house since Bruce Goodluck retired in 1998.

Leader of Government Business in the Lower House Michael Ferguson said yesterday he was in discussions with the former Labor MP about allowing her the same speaking rights afforded to members of parties. “We want to make sure that Madeleine is not prevented from being able to ask questions and I’m currently in a process of negotiating that with her in a way that is satisfactory to her and ensuring it doesn’t subtract from the current opportunity that Greens and Labor currently have,’’ he said.

Ms O’Connor said it was important for Ms Ogilvie to have a voice, but said it should not come at the expense of the Greens’ allocation of questions. “We won’t be giving up any of our two precious questions in question time,’’ Ms O’Connor said.

Ms O’Connor took aim at the Government’s use of question time — including one recent example where she said Treasurer Peter Gutwein took 7½ minutes to answer what she labelled a Dorothy Dix question.

“In this day and age, there is no justification for Dorothy Dix questions where you have backbenchers asking ministers to tell parliament how terrific they are,’’ she said.

Mr Ferguson said among legislation set to be tabled this week was a Bill which would extend Tasmania’s moratorium on genetically modified organisms by 10 years, legislation on public works, and legislation on matters arising from the royal commission into institutional child sex abuse.

Meanwhile, a controversial Place Names Bill could be debated as early as this week.