INTERJECTIONS IN DEBATES

Southland Times, Issue 23307, 17 September 1937, Page 8

INTERJECTIONS IN DEBATES

MR SPEAKER APPEALS FOR RESTRAINT DIFFICULTIES OF RADIO LISTENERS (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, September 16. An appeal for restraint in the use of interjections during debates in the House of Representatives was made in the House today by Mr Speaker (the Hon W. E. Barnard). After referring to the relevant Standing Order, which provides that no member shall interrupt another except for certain specified purposes, Mr Speaker said that for some time past strict application of this rule had been relaxed with the tacit consent of the House in favour of members asking reasonable questions. Reasonable and well-framed interjections, said Mr Speaker, did on occasions relieve the tedium of debate and he had no wish to fetter members unduly. However, he was bound to say that a growing tendency to the following practices was to be deplored: Indulgence by an individual member in a'flow of interjections, often of a bantering and irrelevant nature; the infliction by several members at once of a barrage of interjections which were quite beyond his powers to discriminate, but which were apt to disturb the order of the House. “Incidentally,” said Mr Speaker, “thousands of the public who now listen in to Parliament experience difficulty in following the tenor of debates through the confused noise caused by such interjections. Members equally with Mr Speaker share the responsibility for the maintenance of the traditional and decorous conduct of parliamentary proceedings and I wish to appeal for full recognition of this duty at all times on the part of every member.”

Mr Speaker said a special responsibility fell upon him as representing the House to see that the decorum of parliamentary debate was maintained at the high level customary in the House over many years. With the support of the House he would do his best to uphold the established usage of Parliament applying to interjections which were definitely in order when, in the words of his immediate predecessor, Sir Charles Statham, they were “rare and reasonable.”