Appropriation Debate To Dominate

Parliament is set to be dominated by a Budget related set piece debate this week.

After Question Time and other business (with a motion on the earthquakes in Nepal likely), the Business Committee has agreed to a nine hour debate on the committee stage of the Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill.

This will include two hours debate on the Government’s financial statements for 2013/14 and seven hours debate on the 2013/14 annual reviews.

For the first time this will be divided into separate debates covering the Government’s inter-departmental themes:

These are:

• Services for citizens: education, health, housing, senior citizens, social Development

• Services for business: accident compensation, commerce and consumer affairs, customs, economic development, foreign affairs and trade, immigration, labour, science and innovation, tourism

• Infrastructure: Canterbury earthquake recovery, communications, energy, transport • Justice: corrections, courts, Crown legal and drafting services, justice, police and serious fraud

• Natural resources: conservation, environment, lands

• Primary industries: primary industries (agriculture, fisheries, forestry, horticulture, biosecurity), food safety

• Internal affairs and government relationships: arts, culture and heritage, defence, finance and revenue, internal affairs, Māori affairs, Pacific Island affairs, Prime Minister and Cabinet, security intelligence, services for Parliament, sport and recreation, State services, statistics, Treaty negotiations, and women’s affairs.

The Government can interrupt the debate at any time and if it chooses to do so the business on top of the Order Paper is the second reading of the Social Assistance (Portability to Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau) Bill and the third reading of the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill (No 2).

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