Estimates Debate — In Committee

Members, I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Appropriation (2022/23 Estimates) Bill. The Standing Orders provide for 11 hours of debate on the Estimates. There is one hour, six minutes remaining in the debate.

The Business Committee has determined that the debate will end at the conclusion of the debate with Minister of Education. The Business Committee has determined to organise the debate by portfolio, so there will no sector-specific debates. All Votes are available for debate, but only specific Ministers will be available each day to speak to the indicated portfolios only. The Government has indicated that the Minister of Education will be available today.

Each debate will be led by a call from the chairperson or a member of the committee that considered the Estimates most closely related to the Minister’s portfolio. Once this debate expires, questions will be put that the Votes stand part of the schedules and on the provisions of Appropriation (2022/23 Estimates) Bill.

The time for the debate has been allocated to parties on a proportional basis, and may be taken as parties see fit during the debate. The New Zealand Labour Party has 20 minutes remaining, so I caution members of the other side, if you want questions to be answered, you might want to ask all your questions at the same time—well, actually, it is up to you, but just know that there are only 20 minutes for the Minister to respond to your questions. The New Zealand National Party has 37 minutes remaining. The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand has six minutes remaining. ACT New Zealand has 11 minutes remaining. Te Paati Māori has eight minutes remaining.

The Estimates debate should be relevant to the Government’s current spending plans, as contained in the Estimates of Appropriations. A compendium of the reports of select committees on the Votes is available on the Table.

The question being debated is that the Votes contained in the Estimates of Appropriation 2022/23 stand part of the schedules. Members, we have the Minister of Education to speak to the portfolio. I call on the chair of the committee, Marja Lubeck.

Education