John Armstrong: Silent protest makes mockery of question time

From the same universe of the absurd as the dog which wouldn't bark and the fish that couldn't swim comes the Cabinet minister who won't answer questions.

Opposition MPs were aghast and Government members agog in Parliament yesterday after Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee broke with convention and refused to respond to a question from Greens co-leader Metiria Turei.

Brownlee had simply had enough. He had already answered five questions from Turei on National's intended "stocktake" of mineral resources on Conservation land. He had repeatedly told her the Government had no intention of plundering or pillaging national parks or other valued parts of the Department of Conservation estate.

But Turei's questions - which might more accurately be described as political statements masquerading as questions - just kept on coming.

Brownlee's refusal provoked a storm of protest.

Question time is the Opposition's prime opportunity to hold ministers to account. As Labour's David Parker observed, question time could be rendered completely ineffective if questions from Opposition members could be ignored by the Government.

Old hands around Parliament had to cast their minds back to the 1980s to recall a previous occasion on which a minister had refused to answer.

Speaker Lockwood Smith initially ruled that Brownlee should answer the question unless the minister thought it was not in the public interest to do so - an allowable reason under Parliament's rules. He then called on Brownlee to reply.

But Brownlee remained in his seat. Seeing that, Smith noted Brownlee clearly had nothing to say and declared that was the end of the matter.

However, Labour's Darren Hughes, who is the shadow leader of the House, argued that if a minister believed that it was not in the public interest to answer, the minister should get up and say that, not just sit there.

By now, Smith had reached for the book containing rulings by Speakers past and and found it was customary but not obligatory for a minister to answer a question.

Parker tried a different tack, saying that while the Speaker's rulings might state that a minister did not have to "answer" a question, Brownlee had failed to "address" the question. Unless he did so he would be in breach of the Standing Orders.

However, Parker was trumped by United Future's Peter Dunne, who had found another ruling which stated a minister was not even obliged to seek the call when asked a question.

In Dunne's view, such a practice was unusual, and even undesirable. But there was a clear precedent for Brownlee's refusal.

Saying he was not about to turn these past rulings on their heads, the Speaker still had something to say about Turei and Brownlee.

The former would be "well advised" to reflect on the wording of her questions. She promptly ignored him and asked another highly loaded question which went down the same track as its predecessors

As for Brownlee, the public would make its judgment. "Ministers would be very unwise to refuse to answer them, because in the court of public opinion a minister would be condemned for refusing to do so," Smith said.

In other words, Brownlee should not make a habit of it.