Jones ShaneHon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): Thank you Madam Chair. Look I want to thank the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee for their contributions. The honourable member from the Opposition Andrew Bayly did come and see me this morning and I respect him for reaching out to me. I just want to direct our attention to clause 20: The Minister may give direction to provide report". Now as I understand the contribution and the content of what is quite a reasonable set of expectations in the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—and I want to tell the House that already the officials—the advisers and advocates and whatnot—that will eventually be employed by the entity once it's established are seized of this issue. I don't think that today—in fact I know today—I'm not able on behalf of the Government to commit to this SOP. But I want to say to the member I actually agree with a lot of what he's saying but I'm of the view that to include the SOP today in quite this manner and form—I'm not in a position to agree with it. I do think though that there's a deeper set of questions that both parties have struggled to resolve. We have inherited a set of obligations upon us to be quite miserly in terms of how we allocate capital and risk. We've never wanted—and certainly in my lifetime as a public figure—to burden the Crown with too much of the risk. That's had the effect of—with the exception of the debacle of the Christchurch rebuild but put that to the side—actually creating far too much fiscal disharmony in too many firms. So to the extent that that's what the member is alerting to us I agree. My preference however is for us to pick this body of work up possibly after a more exhaustive process with the actual members of the commission and I would note that the select committee members themselves have since told me—and not in any partisan way—that they did have this discussion and I'm confident that one letter signed with characteristic flourish from the Minister for Infrastructure to Dr Bollard will set in train the very thing that the Opposition is seeking to achieve.So I agree with the contributions the content. I just cannot agree this afternoon for the SOP to be added to this particular bill but I do give an undertaking—to the extent that a politician can give an undertaking—to bring back either a further amendment or evidence that the officials behind me are going to push forward with options that our Government can finally deal to this conundrum pertaining to procurement. But I would say to the House it's not just a problem that we've made. It's a problem that worsened over the last nine years.Now on the question of the amateur author otherwise known as the Opposition finance spokesman not understanding the English language in clause 9 I'd have to say I would direct his attention to the interpretation section: " 'infrastructure' means physical infrastructure … that results in services in New Zealand"; " 'infrastructure projects' … the creation of new infrastructure; … the maintenance upgrading replacement decommissioning or removal of existing infrastructure". Now I accept some human infrastructure was removed as a consequence of the last election and may that condition long prevail. So I think that the member's making not only nonsense; he's betraying the fact that despite having written many books that no one has actually read he's more than capable of deploying his skills in the English language to get a better set of contributions—a better set of contributions. So good content a useful contribution but as of today not something that I am able to muster enough support for in terms of voting for the SOP."