Key John: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Key John: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 14 December 2004. Volume:622;Page:17853. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 Part 1 in many respects cuts to the heart of what this debate is all about which is the spending of Government money. If this Government knows anything it knows how to spend money. It loves spending money and it will spend $23.4 billion worth of new money over the next 4 years. So the Government should have a lot of interest in this bill. I have no doubt that one of the reasons it decided to push this legislation through Parliament was that it knew it was going to spend so much money and thought it had better have a darned good idea of where the money was going and how it was being spent. I fear for the Minister of Finance because under this legislation he will probably be giving Government departments not only more money—and when I say more money I mean a lot more by any standards—but also a lot more authority and accountability. 
We have seen in Government departments some quite excessive spending in recent times in a number of areas. I do not need to get up in this Chamber and talk about things like hip-hop tours and twilight golf—stuff that we know the Government has enjoyed funding and looks forward to funding. We have seen excessive spending and wasted expenditure across a lot of areas. It is easy to look at things like health and education and to argue that because they are such important parts of our economy and our society somehow we should not challenge the idea that the money being spent in those areas is being spent correctly. For a moment let us look at health spending in New Zealand. It will have gone from around $6 billion to around $10 billion by the end of next year—a $4 billion increase or around 80 percent of the original Budget spending. When I look through Part 1 of the bill I do not feel a great deal of confidence at all that the $10 billion worth of expenditure in that very important area will be spent well. 
One of the reasons why I do not have a warm fuzzy feeling in my tummy when I look at Part 1 and think about the $10 billion that will be pouring into health is that this bill will allow for the aggregation of appropriations. It will allow a Government department to put together a number of appropriations into a much larger appropriation which will be much more difficult for Parliament to scrutinise. I would feel a lot better about that if when I put parliamentary questions to the relevant Ministers I got answers that were worth anything more than the garbage that often pours out the other side. Maybe I will pop up to my office and pull out a few of the juicier answers. Maybe I could spend 5 minutes in this debate tonight on reading out the answers to questions like this: can the Minister explain to the House why $3.4 million of unallocated expenditure in XYZ vote has taken place? The answer: “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” or something like that is not an extreme example of the kinds of answers that come across my desk. What is this legislation going to do? [ 
Interruption 
] Actually I got one the other day about $5.7 million for the Seasprite helicopter. [ 
Interruption 
] No it is true. The Minister of Finance answered it. The Minister of Education who is also the Associate Minister of Finance and who answers a few of those questions is not very hot though. 
What will the aggregation of appropriations allow? 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: He’s the dark side of the force. 
JOHN KEY 
: Well there is definitely a dark side yes. He is the yang part of the yin and yang is he not? Does the Minister have any hints as to what that member’s new portfolio will be on Monday? Perhaps we should not go there. I thought of the customs portfolio. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Better than anything the National Party would be offering. 
JOHN KEY 
: It will certainly be better than anything we would offer him; I am prepared to accept that. As long as he does not become the junior whip; we are very fond of the existing one. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Been there done that. 
JOHN KEY 
: Oh he has been there and done that. Well one comes and one goes. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: He hasn’t got the hair for it these days. 
JOHN KEY 
: He does not have the hair. But it is little like public finance Acts: one comes and goes with that sort of stuff. The aggregation of appropriations will lead in some portfolios to real ambiguity about what is going on. We can see what will happen.The game will be played a little bit like this. The ministry will see how much it can hoodwink the relevant Minister in the chair by putting together as many as it can of the most ambiguous and unrelated appropriations into one. So we will have the coffee service money being allocated and put together with the money for the new Seasprite helicopter parts for the one that crashed the other day. They will be put together in one appropriation.