Annual Review Debate — In Committee

This is the debate on the annual reviews of departments, Offices of Parliament, Crown entities, public organisations, and State enterprises, as reported on by select committees. The time allocated for this debate is 10 hours. Members, please bear with me as I indicate to the Committee the rulings of the Business Committee.

The Business Committee has determined that the debate is to be divided into 10 separate debates, covering the sectors set out in the Estimates of Appropriations for 2015-16. The Business Committee has further determined that eight 5-minute calls per sector will be allocated to committee chairs, Ministers, and parties as follows: the committee chairperson, one call; the Minister, three calls; the Labour Party, two calls; the Green Party, one call; and New Zealand First Party, one call. In addition, there are 40 5-minute supplementary calls that may be taken by parties as they see fit during the 10 sector debates. The supplementary calls have been allocated as follows: National, 14; Labour, 13; the Greens, six; New Zealand First, five; the Māori Party, one; and ACT, one.

Each debate will be led by a call from the chairperson of the select committee nominated by the Government as the major committee reporting on the sector in order to set out the major findings of their committee. At the end of each debate, the question will be put that the committee reports relevant to the sector be noted. The time taken on each question is in the hands of members, depending on parties’ use of their allocation of supplementary calls. However, the debate expires after 10 hours.

I understand that the annual review debate will be held across several days. A motion to report progress on the bill must be moved on a call, not a point of order—Speaker’s ruling 89/5. Because the annual review debate will run for a fixed period of time and the calls have been allocated proportionally, it would harm the proportionality of the debate to treat the motion to report progress as a member’s entire call. Therefore, when a member moves to report progress in this annual review debate, the presiding officer will call on that member first when the debate resumes. This is a similar process to that followed in other debates when they are adjourned.

At the conclusion of the debate, a single question is put on the provisions of the Appropriation (2015/16 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. There is no amendment or debate on this question.

Economic Development and Infrastructure Sector