Tremain Chris: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Tremain Chris: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:654;Page:3059] 
2.  
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: How will Budget 2009 address large spending commitments made in Budget 2008? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 The previous Government made a number of large unfunded commitments that were not consistent with this Government’s policies. Some of the commitments had funding attached. In those cases the Ministers have assessed whether to continue with them or whether the money is better spent elsewhere. A second group of commitments were simply promises with no funding set aside in Budget 2008. We have indicated that we are weighing up these commitments against other spending priorities. Some of those commitments have been kept but many have been dropped either because they had no funding or because they were the wrong priorities. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You will be well aware that during the preparation of questions for the House today the Government submitted a question that used the phrase “unfunded commitments” or the word “unfunded” which is the wording that the Minister used in his reply. That word was removed by the Clerk’s Office for being out of order because it presupposes a misuse of parliamentary procedure for which no evidence has been submitted. I ask whether the Opposition—the previous Government—has any relief in the circumstance where the Minister has used in his reply exactly the same phrase— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I ask the member to sit down. This is not a matter that can be dealt with by way of a point of order. The member is questioning the quality of the Minister’s answers. Unless the member feels that matter is a personal affront to him he can question the quality of the answer only through further supplementary questions not the point of order process. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Forgive me; I may not have made myself clear. It is not a— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Forgive me. The honourable member made himself perfectly clear. I have pointed it out to him that this is not a matter for a point of order. Questioning what the Minister said in his answer and whether the Clerk had approved it as part of a question is irrelevant. If the member disagrees with the answer given by the Minister he should use his supplementary questions available to question the Minister in detail on that. 
Chris Tremain 
: What will be the effect of ending these unfunded commitments? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The most important effect of it is that it will tell people who have been expecting money from those commitments that they should be realistic and not to expect the money. Most of the unfunded commitments related to future years so ending them will have little direct effect. It simply means that people who have high expectations based on promises by the Labour Government now realise that those promises were not backed by funding so they will not receive that funding. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Is not the largest unfunded spending commitment the multimillion-dollar broken promise that his Government pulled on New Zealanders by campaigning for unaffordable tax cuts for the rich months after Lehman Brothers collapsed and dire signs of international trouble were already obvious? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The member who just resumed his seat may not be aware that the cost of National’s tax cut programme was exactly the same as the cost of his programme. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Can the Minister confirm that the Auckland governance changes are a massive unfunded promise given that his own leader confirmed in the House today that he has no idea how much the changes will cost the country; and can he also confirm that the Government has broken its promise to maintain New Zealand superannuation by failing to contribute to the scheme at a time when good assets are cheap? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: With regard to commitments made to Auckland what the people of Mt Albert may know now is that the Labour Government promised them a tunnel with no money to build the $3 billion project. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. As a member of the previous executive I do take exception to that phrase and I will draw attention to a report published by— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will resume his seat. Is he seeking leave to make a personal explanation? I am just trying to ascertain exactly what the issue of order is that he is trying to have addressed. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Mr Speaker I take personal objection to the phrase “unfunded commitments” which that member has used. Taking personal exception to that is an entitlement under the Standing Orders. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I refer you Mr Speaker to Speakers’ rulings 163/6 165/6 165/5 and 165/3 all of which I think satisfactorily deal with the concerns that the Hon David Cunliffe has. Those concerns are about the quality of the answer he has received. You Mr Speaker over and above the rulings by the Hon Jonathan Hunt and the Hon Margaret Wilson that I have referred to have also said that the Speaker is not responsible for judging the quality of answers. You have been very clear that if a direct question is asked then a direct answer should be given. This side of the House is endeavouring to comply with that. It is incumbent upon the other side of the House to ask responsible questions. The reality in this case is that the Government itself does not bear a direct cost for the restructuring of the Auckland governance. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: In your consideration of the point of order I wonder whether you could also consider Standing Order 377(2)(b) which prohibits a Minister to answer using arguments inferences or imputations that are inappropriate. The phrase “unfunded commitment” which the Clerk has ruled out arguably falls within that category. Also Speaker’s ruling 164/7 reminds us that a Minister in answering about a report that he has seen may not use this to cast an inference on the policy of another political party for which he is not responsible. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not want this debate to go any further because actually I think there is some misunderstanding over the concern the member first raised. It is not that the question was not answered that was the issue the member raised. The member raised the issue whether the Minister used language that the member took exception to. The dilemma around the Standing Orders in respect of an answer to a question is that either the member takes personal exception to it and wants to make a personal explanation to clear it up or it is simply a matter of the quality of the answer which I cannot get involved in as the Speaker. That is the dilemma around our Standing Orders. So either the member wishes to make a personal explanation or he has to pursue it through further questions. That is why question time is handled this way under the Standing Orders because you do have questions to pursue the issue if that is what the member wants to do. 
Chris Tremain 
: In what areas has the Government identified unfunded commitments? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We have identified unfunded commitments in a range of areas including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and in tertiary education. In both of these areas most of the unfunded commitments have been dropped. However spending in Vote Foreign Affairs and Vote Education will rise over the next 4 years. In the case of education the increases are substantial and I am confident that the money spent to implement the Government’s commitments will be well spent will get results and will be backed by funding. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Can the Minister confirm that his PR onslaught about unfunded commitments is actually a deliberate act of confusing a Government’s stated future intention to spend with the technical process of appropriating money each year through Parliament; and does the Minister therefore agree with his previous statement that it is perfectly proper practice to specify funding commitments as specified unspecified or contingent fiscal risks in the Budget as the Minister has confirmed he will continue to do? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Our discussion about unfunded commitments is an expression of frustration at finding that many New Zealanders believed the promises made by the previous Government of large amounts of extra money when those promises were not backed by a specific allocation of funding; and even when they were we found they were often misdirected priorities and that is why we have done a reasonably comprehensive exercise in the time available of knocking out those promises of the previous Government that were unrealistic and reprioritising that money that was misdirected. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I seek leave to table a statement by the Hon Bill English to this House where he confirmed that he will continue to use the same practices in future Budgets around unspecified fiscal risks and contention liabilities. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is this in the  
Hansard 
? 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Yes. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table a  
Hansard 
 record. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is objection. 
Hon Sir Roger Douglas 
: Could the Minister please explain to the House why he places a higher priority on massive increases in expenditure in areas such as broadband State highways and subsidies for small businesses in the 2009 Budget than he does on tax cuts and improvements in productivity in areas such as health and education via the reintroduction of prices? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is possible to emphasise all of those things and I appreciate that we are likely to take a different view of it from the member but we think it is important to continue investing in infrastructure because the economy is going to grow and we would like to relieve those bottlenecks. We agree with the member that it is time for an increase in productivity in the public sector. There have been large increases in expenditure without much increase in services and we are setting out on a 3 to 5-year programme to remedy that. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I seek leave to table chapter 4 from the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update October 2008 which runs through the specific fiscal risks facing the Budget and nowhere uses the phrase “unfunded commitments” when listing those. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It’s already been tabled. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It is already tabled. I take it there is no objection? We get into difficulty when points of order are interjected upon. I take it there is no objection to part of a document that has already been tabled being tabled again? There is no objection. Sorry there is objection to that course of action.