Question time was considered an essential part of business this week as fewer MPs sat for shorter hours under changing Covid alert levels at Parliament.
The House meets under alert level 2 with MPs spaced out in the chamber Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
Auckland is at alert level 2 and the rest of the country at level 1 after cases of community transmission were found in South Auckland at the weekend.
As a result, Parliament reduced its sitting hours, the number of MPs in Wellington, and the business it will work on.
The Leader of the House Chris Hipkins said it was important that the House of Representatives (all the MPs) was still able to hold the Government to account on its decisions and question time is part of that.
“We need to make sure that we have the opportunity for scrutiny so we will have question time each day so members of the opposition in particular can still ask questions of the Government,” he said.
Question time is normally one of the first things the House does when it meets for a sitting day at 2pm. It consists of up to 12 questions to Ministers and is meant to help the House fulfill one of its functions which is to keep a check on the Government.
The approach to this differs depending on what party the MP asking the question belongs to.
Any MP can ask a Minister a question but MPs belonging to a party in Government tend to ask something which allows the Minister to share some positive news.
MPs belonging to the Opposition will try to ask a question which forces the Government to justify a decision or expose a failure.
Supplementary (follow-up) questions can be asked by any MP with the Speaker deciding who gets to ask.
Occasionally a supplementary question will be asked by a government party member to support a Minister being quizzed by the Opposition.
There’s no requirement for anything to happen following these questions but for those watching or listening to this exchange, it’s a chance to judge whether MPs are doing the job they were put there to do like 'is the Government running the country properly, and are the other MPs keeping the Government in check?'.
Question time can be watched on demand on Parliament's website.
