1. Question No. 1—Prime MinisterCHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime MinisterORAL QUESTIONSQUESTIONS TO MINISTERSQuestion No. 1—Prime Minister1. CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his Government's statements and actions?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Prime Minister): Most of them! Yes—except for the ones that I've corrected.Christopher Luxon: Is it still Government policy to reduce the reliance on expensive consultants and contractors saving taxpayers many millions of dollars a year." as he promised in 2018?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It remains the Government's position that the Public Service should be sparing in its use of consultants and contractors. Where there is a justified case for using them then the Public Service should do that but I do still continue to believe that there is too much use of consultants and contractors to do work that the core Public Service could do.Christopher Luxon: Given that answer when should taxpayers expect to see the "many millions of dollars" in savings given consultants spend has ballooned to $1.7 billion on his watch?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I'd encourage the member to have a look at more detail about the nature of that increase. Much of that was one-off and justified in the circumstances. Around a third of that expenditure for example is related to IT expenditure which as the member will know is a consultant-led industry. A significant proportion of it related to COVID19 - related expenses such as the roll-out of the vaccines which the member and his party argued we didn't do fast enough.Christopher Luxon: When he told media this morning he had sent Government departments a memo on consultant spending "many times over the last five years" did he ever stop and ask himself why his memos were being so blatantly ignored? Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I know that one of the reasons that we've seen an increase in recent years was to do with the issues that I have just raised and it was justified in the sense that we have had to replace a number of IT legacy systems—that is a consultant-led industry. Another area of significant growth has been in building and construction where we are doing more capital works than the previous Government did and I absolutely stand by that track record.Christopher Luxon: Did Michael Wood get the memo when he spent $51 million on consultants for a cancelled bike bridge and $53 million on consultants for a non-existent light rail?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It's clear that not everybody got the memo. For example I'm aware that the chair of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council spent money employing consultants to write the one substantive report the council managed to come up with.Christopher Luxon: Did Andrew Little get the memo when according to Rob Campbell he had over 200 comms staff but still had to call in expensive PR consultants to sell Government policy?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Health reforms are the biggest set of reforms to the health system in a generation. It is important that we've got the right people doing the right work.Christopher Luxon: Did Chris Hipkins get the memo when he spent $21 million on consultants for the failed polytech reforms? Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don't regard the polytech reforms as failed and in fact one of the reasons the Opposition might regard them as failed is that we have record numbers of New Zealanders in apprenticeships which is something that they failed to do; in fact the number of people in apprenticeships under National went down.Christopher Luxon: Isn't it the truth that the Government has hired an extra 14000 public servants while in office whose main job appears to be hiring recruiting managing and paying for consultants?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: If the member wants to refer to increased social workers who deal with some our most vulnerable children in that way; if he wants to refer to the extra work people working in Corrections do to ensure that we are doing a better job of rehabilitating prisoners; if he wants to talk about the people who work on the front line at the Ministry of Social Development getting people off benefits and into work in that way then he could do that. If he wants to talk about the speech and language therapists that work directly with kids to improve their educational outcomes in that way then of course he can continue to do that."