Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): I wish to raise the issue of unappropriated expenditure—in fact unlawful expenditure; in the words of the Auditor-General the role of the New Zealand Treasury and Ministers' attitudes to using taxpayer funds without the authority of Parliament—and in doing so I want to note that the matter I am speaking about relates to expenditure that occurred this year but I am raising it in this debate at the direction of the Speaker who said that this was the appropriate forum in which to raise these matters.My issue is one which I want to use the words of the Auditor-General to make it very clear to members and those listening that this is not me as an Opposition MP reaching a conclusion; this is the conclusion of the Office of the Auditor-General of New Zealand. What the Auditor-General has said about the $29.9 million payment for land at Ihumātao which the Government made this year was that the ministry did not seek the correct approvals; that the expenditure was incurred without appropriation without authority to use imprest supply; and that for those reasons the payment is unlawful until validated by Parliament.I want to go back to the time line that led to this because I think there are some important questions which the Minister of Finance should address. What we know is that on 14 December last year the Treasury advised the Minister explicitly that they believed it would not be appropriate to use the Land for Housing Programme appropriation to resolve the dispute at Ihumātao. Their words were incredibly clear. They said that they believed that they couldn't recommend that because there was a risk that it would not fit within the appropriation scope that the proposal was at odds with the intent of the Land for Housing Programme its operating model and scope of related appropriations.But despite that warning from the Treasury—which could not have been clearer—on 20 December the Minister of Finance together with the Minister of Housing announced to the New Zealand public that they would be signing a cheque to buy the land at Ihumātao. They were explicit. They said they would be using the Land for Housing Programme to write that cheque. So my first question to the Minister is: why did he allow the New Zealand public to be misled about this when the Treasury had already been very clear the week prior that that would not be an appropriate use of those funds?The next step in the time line is that on 3 February officials—and we only know this because the Auditor-General investigated this and has put these facts on the public record. I want to be very clear that at no stage has the Minister brought these facts to the House proactively; we had to wait for the Auditor-General to investigate. But on 3 February officials advised that the only way that Ministers would be allowed to sign that cheque was if they created a new and specific appropriation for Ihumātao. On 9 February Ministers agreed to this.Now this is important because the conceit that the Minister of Finance had with the New Zealand public and that he had maintained throughout was that the land at Ihumātao the purchase of it was nothing special. It was just buying land for housing much as the Government did with KiwiBuild—that no additional funds would be used that no precedent was being set that there was nothing particular about this. What this time line shows us is that that was demonstrably false and that the Minister knew it because his officials had advised him that he would have to sign off on a specific new appropriation. And my question is: at the point of signing off on that specific new appropriation why didn't the Minister or the Minister of Housing come clean with the New Zealand public about that?We then know that what occurred was that there were major errors from the New Zealand Treasury because when Ministers go and sign cheques on behalf of the New Zealand public there are actually legal processes which require them to get imprest supply from the Parliament. In this case approval was not sought and that is what the Auditor-General lays out. But despite Treasury speaking to the Auditor-General about this on 12 March here in this Parliament on 17 March the Minister of Housing Minister Woods maintained the fiction that the Land for Housing Programme would be used for Ihumātao even though she knew a specific new appropriation had had to be created.We have since been told by TVNZ that Ministers have alerted them that this has been rectified as part of the March appropriations. My question to the Minister is: what exactly has happened and what was meant by that? Was it his office or Minister Woods' office who advised Maiki Sherman of that and would we expect in future that the Government will continue to use unappropriated and unlawful expenditure in the way they did at Ihumātao?