Annual Review Debate — In Committee

Colleagues, can I ask your indulgence while you leave the House. This, that I’m going to read out, is quite a long piece for me to read, so I suggest that you bear with me and listen carefully.

The House is in Committee on the Appropriation (2017/18 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. This is the debate on the financial position of the Government and the annual reviews of departments, offices of the Parliament, Crown entities, public organisations, and State enterprises as reported on by select committees.

The time allocated for this debate is 10 hours. The debate is divided into 10 separate debates covering the sectors set out in the Estimates of Appropriations 2017/18. Each debate will be led by a call from the chairperson of a select committee reporting on the sector in order to set out the major findings of that committee. Other speeches are allocated on a proportional basis based on membership of the House—and that means that executive members are included in that count. The parties therefore have the following number of calls to use as they choose, across the debates: National has 51, Labour has 42, New Zealand First has eight, Greens have seven, ACT has one, and Jami-Lee Ross has one call.

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 the party’s use of their allocated calls. However, the debate expires after 10 hours. A motion to report progress on a bill must be moved on a call, not a point of order—and that’s Speakers’ ruling 77/5. 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 a 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 (2017/18 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. There is no amendment or debate on this question.

We turn first to the select committee reports on the first sector of annual reviews and the question is that the report of committees relevant to the Economic Development and Infrastructure Sector be noted.

Economic Development and Infrastructure Sector