Dyson RuthHon RUTH DYSON (Chairperson of the Government Administration Committee): Mr Chairman your introduction to this series of debates reminded me of Tim Macindoe's answer to a question. I am taking this call as the chair of the Government Administration Committee and unfortunately unlike most of my other contributions in this House this is likely to be politically neutral because that is the appropriate thing—[Interruption]—and I am glad that the Minister in the chair Judith Collins is so warmly endorsing of that approach.I want to begin by acknowledging the other members of the committee some of whom are no longer permanent members but in the year of this Appropriation (2017/18 Estimates) Bill they were members previously—Mojo Mathers the Hon Mark Mitchell and Brett Hudson—and acknowledge the current members of the committee Paul Foster-Bell Matt Doocey the Hon Scott Simpson the Hon Nanaia Mahuta and Barry Coates. You will know if you reflect on the membership that that is a small number. There are only six on the Government Administration Committee but they are all members who pull their weight and take a lot of interest in the debates that we have.We have a very broad range of topics and I want to thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee for the referral of those votes. A lot of them have a lot of complexity in them. For example we have Vote Parliamentary Service—a very broad range of considerations within that vote. We have Vote Arts Culture and Heritage which also includes part of broadcasting. We have Vote Internal Affairs which sort of sometimes feels like the Government department that gets jobs that people do not know where else to put. It has got a lot of little things in it but a lot of really interesting things in it as well.Our committee considers the vote for Office of the Clerk and the Ombudsmen. This year we had the Ministry for Pacific Peoples and the new Minister before us. I guess I could say that we were disappointed in the performance of the Minister on that particular occasion. We had the Minister—Hon Nathan Guy: You just said you weren't going to get political.Hon RUTH DYSON: Oh no I am just stating facts actually. That was not political; that was factual.We had the vote for sport and recreation and of course there was a lot of excitement around that after the America's Cup. I think our committee claimed total credit for the result given that we have Vote Sport and Recreation. We have State services and statistics. We had the new Minister of Statistics before the committee and I have to say that he impressed as being very well briefed on his portfolio and answered a lot of questions that other new Ministers deferred to the chief executive. So I want to commend the Hon Scott Simpson for his performance. And we have the vote for the Ministry for Women.As well as the members of the committee whom I have acknowledged I would also like to say that having been on a number of select committees in this Parliament I think that we have the benefit of some of the most conscientious staff. They are responsive they are helpful they are thoughtful and they are very diligent in the work they do. So Ciara and Brenna and Matt also deserve a particular tribute during this debate.We have only got 58 days or something to go until the next election and while it has been a privilege for me to chair the Government Administration Committee for the last two terms I am not planning on doing that in the forthcoming term of Parliament because it is a role that is traditionally reserved for an Opposition member. So I am looking forward to a National Party person taking up that role as chair of the Government Administration Committee. I am happy to give them any support that I can.It is a committee that has as I said a wide range of consideration in terms of the votes that are referred to it. We have done a lot of legislation and interesting legislation on top of the consideration of those votes and I am really looking forward to the change of Government the appointment of a National Party member as the chair of the Government Administration Committee—Chris Bishop: Ha ha! You've got to win your seat first Ruth.Hon RUTH DYSON: —and hearing Chris Bishop report from that—oh no he might not get back in; one of the other National MPs reporting back on the votes in the coming term.