Young JonathanEconomic Development and Infrastructure SectorJONATHAN YOUNG (Chairperson of the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee): Thank you Madam Chair. It's a great delight as chair of the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee to start off this debate and to look at essentially what our committee did in its review of the Government departments and entities that came before us.The process of annual reviews is an important one where in a public setting before the elected representatives of the people of New Zealand we require and receive validation and reporting on the taxpayer funding that different Government departments and entities have received. Can I say thank you to all of those entities for the supply of information as requested for appearing before the committee and responding to further questions sent to you.For the financial year 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2018 the committee requested the following entities to appear before us and it is quite an extensive list: AgResearch Broadcasting Commission Callaghan Innovation the Commerce Commission the Financial Markets Authority Kordia Landcare Research MetService NIWA the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) New Zealand Forest Research New Zealand Post New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research New Zealand Productivity Commission New Zealand Tourism Board New Zealand Trade and Enterprise New Zealand Venture Investment Fund Radio New Zealand Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand and TVNZ plus we also joined with the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on the Electricity Authority—so quite an extensive list of agencies representing tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer funding.Perhaps the largest entity was the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. They are a large agency with just over 4870 employees and 47 offices as of June 2018. Its responsibilities cover a wide range of areas including immigration science and innovation communications energy and resources tourism and Government procurement. The ministry aims to grow New Zealand for all" with a focus on economic performance through productive and sustainable use of resources. MBIE works to increase real household incomes through more competitive businesses increased job opportunities and more affordable housing. Their departmental expenditure in 2017/18 was $750 million an increase of about 8 percent from the previous year. Their total revenue was $756 million—just slightly above that. They had a net surplus of $6 million. In addition to its own spending the ministry administers a large amount of non-departmental expenditure as well. This totalled $3.814 billion. So indeed quite a substantial amount of money. This money was administered on behalf of Ministers for services provided by Crown entities and research facilities. In 2017/18 the ministry set up the Provincial Development Unit (PDU) to manage the design administration and monitoring of the Provincial Growth Fund. In 2018 they allocated $3 billion over three years to the Provincial Growth Fund. In the committee when we questioned them there was concern about the transparency and the operation of the PDU and we were assured that information would be put up on the website and that project is well under way.One of their objectives is of course also housing affordability and quality. MBIE has a target to increase real household incomes by 40 percent by 2025. In support of this one of the ministry's objectives is to lower the ratio of housing cost to incomes. In 2017/18 the ministry supported a range of initiatives to improve the supply and affordability of homes focusing on improving conditions for rental properties etc. But we also noted that a new ministry the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development on 1 October 2018 superseded them and so we were able to ask them in terms of that point in time what their goals and achievements were.No doubt a number of members of the committee will report on different aspects of this work but I'd like to say thank you very much to the staff and to those people who have come in and reported to our committee. Thank you."