Curran Clare: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Curran Clare: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:674;Page:20474] 
11. 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he stand by his statement “we don’t actually have a procurement policy. We have a set of assumptions prejudices habits and an Auditor-General.”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Yes. We inherited a set of procurement guidelines that are deficient in a number of areas. In particular they make it very difficult for people with innovative ideas to do business with the public sector at a time when we need the participation of the private sector and its good ideas. As a result we have set about making significant improvements to Government procurement. 
Clare Curran 
: Does he support a procurement policy that requires Government departments and agencies to consider the wider economic impact on the country of their procurement decisions rather than a narrow financial analysis considering only the cost to themselves; if not why not? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We support a procurement policy that will enable us to deliver high-quality public services to New Zealanders and do so at lower cost. That is the Government’s top priority. In respect of its impact on economic development we share the views of the previous Government—that is it is not a significant consideration for Government procurement. 
Clare Curran 
: Can he name any trade agreements breached by Labour’s recently announced procurement policy and explain how it breaches those agreements given that most of New Zealand’s trading partners have internal procurement policies themselves? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: As much as the Minister may like to answer the question I am not sure that he is responsible for Labour Party policy. Rather than deprive the member of a supplementary question I invite her to reword her question. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was a question about whether he could name any breaches. It goes to his mind not the policy. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am prepared to allow the Minister to answer the question. I am sure he will probably quite enjoy answering a question in relation to Labour Party policy. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I have not bothered looking at the Labour procurement policy because I have made the same assumption that everyone has—that is it will be backward-looking and it will signal big spending more waste and more debt. Why would I worry about that? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Since I allowed the Minister to answer the question maybe he should make just a little bit of reference to trade agreements because the question asked whether Labour’s policy would breach any trade agreements. It does give the Minister a fair bit of licence but some mention of trade agreements would perhaps be helpful. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I have not bothered looking at Labour’s policy so I cannot comment on whether it would breach trade agreements. But it is likely to breach common sense. 
Clare Curran 
: Does he agree with Business New Zealand Executive Director Catherine Beard who said in Monday’s  
Dominion Post 
 that agencies were tilting the field “slightly against local participation”; if not why not? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No. We want to tilt the field in favour of companies who have innovative and forward-looking ideas about how they can work with the Government to supply better public services. That is quite different from the approach of the previous Government which tried to have as little as possible to do with the private sector and which managed to kill off any innovative thinking in the Public Service with a combination of fear and bullying. 
Clare Curran 
: I seek leave to table a written transcript of Bill English’s speech at the NetHui conference in Auckland on 30 June and an electronic version of that speech. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.