What are the distinctions between Zero Hour submissions and Special Mentions?

Zero Hour submissions and Special Mentions serve different parliamentary purposes with distinct procedural requirements. Zero Hour submissions are spoken interventions raising urgent current matters, with a strict three-minute limit, where you cannot read from prepared text. Special Mentions, by contrast, must be read verbatim from your prepared and approved text.

For Zero Hour, you submit notices between 12 Noon and 5:00 PM the previous day, with fifteen selected by ballot. Each member gets exactly three minutes to speak, signaled by a bell at two minutes and automatic microphone cutoff at three minutes. You must speak rather than read your submission.

Special Mentions follow a different process under Rule 180A, where your written text is screened by the Chairman, and you must read it exactly as approved - any deviation risks the Chair's intervention. Unlike Zero Hour submissions, Special Mentions are formally recorded in parliamentary proceedings with ministerial responses required within three months.

The Chairman clarified on 1 August 2019: "No Member will be allowed to read the Zero Hour Submission. While speaking, they can refer to points but they cannot read whereas in the Special Mentions, they cannot speak, they have to read." Rule 9.1 establishes that "Only three minutes are to be allotted to each issue raised during the zero hour," while Rule 5.1(xi) emphasizes this limit "is to be strictly complied with."