Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers

As the member is aware, a summary of this report has been released in the last few hours and I am yet to see a final copy of the report. I will be interested to read the full report and see whether it makes any specific proposals. If so, they will of course be considered carefully by the Government.

💬 Murray Smith: Is the Government prepared to give consideration to United Future’s policy of substantially increasing the maximum personal tax rebate on donations to charitable organisations, over the mere $630, given the fact that voluntary agencies are heavily reliant on such private funding, and that private funding is increasingly more difficult to get, but that voluntary agencies save the Government so much money; if not, why not?

We already have made one increase, and I indicated at the time that we will undertake regular reviews of that limit now for each year and during the Budget process, and obviously listen carefully to United Future on these matters.

💬 Sue Bradford: Has the Minister been briefed on the economic contribution of New Zealand’s largest philanthropic organisation, the Tindall Foundation, and will the Government act on the Tindall Foundation’s submission on the Charities Bill, which stated: “We do not support the intent of this bill. It will only add to the burdens carried by the community and voluntary sector, while not achieving what the Government and this sector want it to.”?

No, I have not been briefed on that, but yes, the Government will be undertaking a full review of the Charities Bill with a view to taking account of the submissions made, and some major recasting. Clearly the bill is too heavy on the regulatory side and too heavy in terms of compliance costs.

💬 Murray Smith: Given the Minister’s friendly attitude to United Future proposals, is the Government also prepared to give consideration to adopting United Future’s policy of a community volunteer rebate of $5 an hour, up to a maximum of 100 hours a year, which would strongly encourage the participation in the labour force of those aged over 55 who could otherwise be considered underemployed, in economic terms; if not, why not?

Perhaps I could invite the member to approach me formally on this matter, in writing, and we will get some reports on it. I must say, as Minister of Revenue, I always tend to be slightly cynical and wonder at the opportunities for tax avoidance that might occur as a result of this. I suspect there would be a massive flowering of volunteers if there were a special tax rebate for them.

Question Time

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I waited until the end of question time to raise this issue, which relates to your ruling at the beginning of the session. Yesterday I put down a question on notice. I asked the Prime Minister a question that specifically asked how many of 350 jobs had materialised. You will recall that we had some supplementary questions and some points of order. Finally it transpired that the Prime Minister had asked Jim Anderton’s office to ring for the answer, but it could not find out. We repeated the question today, just to secure an answer.

This is one of the things that I think frustrates this side, somewhat. It may be that circumstances had changed and the Prime Minister was able to get an answer, but one would wonder sometimes, if one were cynical, whether Ministers are being very, very economical with their answers and with their efforts to secure an answer. I can understand the Prime Minister not being able to answer a supplementary question that is narrowing in on something, but this was a primary question. We wasted our question, a great many supplementary questions, and a great deal of time. We put down another primary question, and we got the answer. I ask you to consider what that means from an Opposition party’s point of view, when it cannot get Ministers, and particularly the Prime Minister, to answer a question—especially a question on notice.

Clearly, the Prime Minister did attempt to obtain an answer yesterday, which Sovereign Yachts was not prepared to supply. For whatever reason, Sovereign Yachts was prepared to supply it today. I suppose Sovereign Yachts, like sovereigns, may change its mind from day to day.

Earlier in the day you referred us to Speakers’ Rulings and you mentioned Speakers’ ruling 144/5, which starts with Speaker Harrison. That ruling suggests that the remedy for the Speaker might be to allow extra supplementary questions, and there are also other indications for that in Speakers’ ruling 145/3 and Speaker’s ruling 146/7. When you are considering the representations you have heard today, I wonder whether you would contemplate occasionally granting extra supplementary questions where there have been responses that have trifled with the original question or the supplementary question. It would probably not need to be done very often. It would be a discipline in your hands, and it would mean that we did not need to keep coming to you, on points of order, with these objections.

You have already indicated that under certain circumstances you would be prepared to do that, but I suggest that if it is to be done with any degree of frequency, it would need to be balanced on the other side: where members were asking questions that were trivial, inappropriately phrased, or not taking the House seriously, then future supplementary questions would be deducted from the party asking those questions.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: That is a nice thought but I do not intend to do that. What I do intend, however, is to agree with the original point that was raised by Mr Hide and Mr Franks. I will allow extra supplementary questions if I think I have to, and I actually have done that a few times this year.