Annual Review Debate — In Committee

Kāti rā, tēnā tātou.

[If I may, greetings all.]

The House is in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation (2019/20 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. This is the debate on the financial position of the Government and the annual reviews of departments, Offices of Parliament, Crown entities, public organisations, and State enterprises, as reported by select committees. There are five hours 11 minutes remaining in this debate. New Zealand Labour has two hours 58 minutes remaining, New Zealand National has one hour 20 minutes remaining, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand has 34 minutes remaining, the ACT Party has 25 minutes remaining, and Te Paati Māori has eight minutes remaining.

Members will recall that Standing Orders 356(2) and (3) have been set aside, so there will be no sector-specific debates. All annual reviews are available for debate, but only specific Ministers will be available each day to respond. The Government has indicated that the Minister of Transport, the Minister for Social Development and Employment, the Minister for Economic and Regional Development and of Tourism, the Minister of Housing and the Minister of Energy and Resources, the Minister of Immigration, the Minister of Corrections, the Minister for Māori Development, and the Minister of Police will be available today. Each debate will be led off by the chairperson or another member of the select committee that considered annual reviews most closely related to the Minister’s portfolios. At the conclusion of the debate, questions will be put noting the committee reports on annual reviews and on provisions of the Appropriation (2019/20 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. There is no amendment or debate on these questions.

When the committee was last considering the bill, the question was that the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the annual financial statements of the Government for the 2019/20 financial year be noted. Dr Duncan Webb had the call, should he wish—nope. OK. We have the Hon Michael Wood in the chair.

Transport