Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): I am interested to discuss these Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that have been prepared by Mr Andrew Bayly. He's obviously thinking very carefully about it because he's brought not just the SOP but then an amendment to the SOP as he thought of another good idea. It would be helpful to have them on a timely basis Mr Bayly but I guess that doesn't always happen does it? I'm in two minds about these SOPs. We have had in the Finance and Expenditure Committee quite an extended discussion about procurement and procurement practices led by a report from the Auditor-General who does prepare excellent reports for us. The Auditor-General does have a pretty extensive project going looking at procurement practices within Government and how it could be done better. It is as Mr Bayly says quite an important issue for us to have a look at.I do agree that we do need to have a focus on procurement. I'm not sure—and this is genuine not sure"; I'm not trying to cast doubt on Mr Bayly's SOPs—that this particular entity is the place to do it and I think the committee should have a good kōrero about it—a good talk about it—because we haven't examined this idea in select committee so we do need to have a look at it now.I guess the reason why I'm not sure is that even though it is obviously a good idea for us to be looking at procurement at some place across Government I wonder if it would undercut the purpose of the Infrastructure Commission. The purpose of the commission is to make those long-term planning decisions for Government. The purpose is to have a look at what infrastructure we have have a look at what infrastructure we need have a look at how we should be maintaining that infrastructure—it is to look across all those issues. The purpose is very much of visualising of having a vision around infrastructure and building towards it of ensuring that contractors—sorry the construction firms and the like; the civil engineers—actually have a very good understanding of what projects are being lined up over the next 10 15 20 or 30 years so that they can plan themselves. If we add examining procurement to that I think that's another whole function. I don't know that it sits within the original function of the Infrastructure Commission. So there are a series of questions around that then. One is how it relates to the overall purpose of the commission and I'll be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that. But the other one is straightforwardly a funding issue. The Infrastructure Commission is a planning entity. It will gather information for that purpose it will assess information for that purpose and so on. Examining the procurement processes is actually a different sort of activity. The commission won't be planning those procurement processes; instead it's planning the infrastructure itself. So I'm not sure that the procurement processes actually fit within the structure of the Infrastructure Commission and I think we should have a very careful think about doing it. Now if we go ahead with putting procurement processes in there I don't have concerns about the issues around reporting back and so on. Those are fairly straightforward—you don't just set the procurement function up and then not actually report back on it. But I do think we should examine the actual purpose of the Infrastructure Commission and whether or not examining procurement processes fit within that. So I'm hoping that the Minister will let us know what his thoughts are on that issue and obviously I'd be interested to hear from Mr Bayly again on that particular issue as well especially when he's you know heard my doubts and concerns about it. I would like to hear a little bit more from Mr Bayly about exactly why it fits together with the Infrastructure Commission. You know the commission does have a variety of functions. I'm just not convinced about adding this one to it. Thank you Madam Chair."