SpeechLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Sorry Mr Bayly. Andrew Bayly: Oh you are just being difficult aren't you? LAWRENCE YULE: Look I know—I know. I apologise. On this side of the House we are incredibly happy. The Hon—he's not honourable actually. Fletcher Tabuteau said we're sad. We're not sad; we're incredibly happy. As part of my contribution on the Estimates I do wish to give a little bouquet out at the beginning of this contribution. My colleague from Hawke's Bay the Hon Stuart Nash is looking very stern this evening but I would like to say that as part of the revenue budget I do want to congratulate the Hon Stuart Nash for the changes to the tax system which are substantial and they generally went through without a hitch. So he should be happy about that—and that's the first smile I've seen from him all evening. So it's nice to give out a bouquet at the beginning. However in this year of delivery there are two things I want to talk about. One is the 2018 census and the Statistics New Zealand budget and the other is the Ombudsman. The 2018 census can only be described as an unmitigated disaster and even today in a select committee on public record we asked questions. We actually asked for an inquiry to be done. Of course it was blocked by the other side because they're not interested in openness and transparency. They showed us a report that'd been done which I read. There are probably more questions than answers in that report. The reason I want to talk about this in my contribution is because if you look at the Estimates summary it says that there were some major lessons learnt—they spent too much time and money on the online part of it—but the bit that worries me the most is that we are now transferring $6 million from the 2023 census back into the 2018 census to try and fix up the mess. Then further on in the budget the way of funding that is to discontinue surveys—surveys that are important to New Zealand for New Zealand's transparency and understanding. So there is no longer going to be an accommodation survey. There is no longer going to be an energy use survey a screen industry survey or an internet provider survey. That's what Stats New Zealand have decided to do to save $4.5 million to fix up the mess and the $6 million they've had to transfer from the 2023 census. When I stand back and look at this this Government should simply have said A lot of mistakes were made. We need to fund it. We need to fix it." Instead what we're doing is compromising the future of those surveys and the future understanding of New Zealanders. I don't think anybody in the New Zealand public quite understands the significance of the census data. Today we were also advised in select committee and on public record that the data for the household numbers will be released in September and we were also told that that's likely to be enough to form electoral boundaries. So electoral boundaries will be formed on a census that 800000 New Zealanders didn't complete and a $120 million cost was involved. It's now $126 million because we're nicking money—or "pinching" is more a parliamentary term—from 2023. Now I just think this is outrageous. Here we have a Government in the year of delivery that has significantly under-invested underutilised the services. A person has been held accountable and is leaving but as of today I have no guarantee that the lessons have been properly learnt. We have wasted money we've wasted resource and a once-in-five-year opportunity has been completely blundered. The other thing I wish to talk about this evening is around the Ombudsman. It's been mentioned by my colleague the Hon Jacqui Dean and it's around the proactive release of Government material. So in December 2018 the Government announced its intention to release details from Ministers' diaries on all meetings they attend. Then it's actually that they want to be more proactive about providing the advice they receive. It now can take as the Hon Jacqui Dean said three months to get that material to be proactively released—longer than you can get it under the Official Information Act. The Chief Ombudsman told us the objective is that the material be released on a weekly basis once Ministers' offices understood how the new system works. How difficult can that be—to release information you have in an electronic way?"