Whaitiri Meka: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5626. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe Mr Chairman. Tēnā tātou katoa. I am happy to take a call on the Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill on primary industries. Before I do that can I please acknowledge the passing of the last 28th Māori Battalion veteran from Awatere Valley of Te Wairoa Te Hei Mauroa Ben Hook; e te rangatira o te Pakānga Tuarua haere haere haere atu rā.I come from a long line of freezing workers and it is from that perspective that I am going to contribute to this vote that we are discussing today. Can I acknowledge Rose White an auntie of mine who after 40 years and 328 days has finally hung up her apron and knives after working for Silver Fern Farms in Whakatū. I want to acknowledge my auntie and wish her all the very best in her retirement.As a product of our being freezing workers my auntie often told me that freezing workers were the backbone of our economy and I will work with anybody in this Chamber in fit for purpose primary policies that enable opportunities for all New Zealanders. I am happy to be a member of the very hard-working Primary Production Committee and I want to acknowledge both our chair and the Minister for Primary Industries for coming to the select committee when we examined his vote—and it was a very big vote that we had to examine. But my contribution tonight is going to be on the Primary Growth Partnership and there have been a lot of speakers speaking about that tonight.For the benefit of those who may not have been there I will just quickly remind members that the Primary Growth Partnership was established in 2009. Its purpose is to increase investment and innovation and to achieve economic growth and sustainability for multiple industries in the primary sector. It is responsibly administered by the Ministry for Primary Industries. The partnership meets equally or exceeds the investment made by the Crown with private investors and it has an investment advisory panel that assesses all the proposals and business plans before it makes a recommendation.In the last Parliament the Primary Production Committee requested that the Office of the Auditor-General examine the Primary Growth Partnership. The committee was specifically interested in the transparency and management of the programme—hence my reason for making this contribution. On 30 November 2014 the Crown committed $322 million to 18 programmes of which just under $120 million has been spent. The Auditor-General’s office undertook a performance audit of the Primary Growth Partnership and it reviewed six programmes with a combined investment of $491.3 million.So what were the findings of the office? Basically the Auditor-General said that the Primary Growth Partnership was set up too quickly. It encountered some challenges in its early stages—for example the definition of funding conditions and criteria in the early funding rounds appeared to be “loose”. The office expressed concern about the concept of additionality—which my colleague Damien O’Connor talked about—to ensure that the Crown was not just paying for something that should have been just part of the normal process of some of these larger industries.The Auditor-General’s report also identified that given that the size of our country of New Zealand is quite small there were going to be times that you could have conflict in terms of having limited core expertise in the primary sector. The Auditor-General noted however that the limited scope of the audit did not determine whether the investment advisory panel or the programme steering groups had a potential conflict of interest that should have been declared. That is not saying that a conflict of interest was not there; it was just not part of the scope of the investigation.What were the overall findings in relation to the Primary Growth Partnership according to the Auditor-General? Clearly transparency and accountability issues were identified and that was something that the select committee took on board and we are undertaking to investigate it again in about 6 months’ time. I want to just make sure for my colleagues on the committee that we uphold the findings of the Auditor-General ensuring that all Crown money is going to what is intended.I know that this is rushed because we have got only a few minutes but I want to turn your attention now to Crown Irrigation Investments. I want to acknowledge the Minister again for coming to the select committee and for his commitment that we will not be investing—