Chris Hipkins
MP for Rimutaka
Shadow Leader of the House
MEDIA STATEMENT

26 July 2016

Questions for (Oral) Answer- Tuesday 26th of July

While Parliament might be in recess, there are still plenty of things that Ministers need to answer for. So the Labour team has put together six of the best questions that the Government should be answering today (plus a special bonus question), Labour’s Shadow Leader of the House Chris Hipkins said.

QUESTION TO MINISTERS

1. ANDREW LITTLE to the Prime Minister: Why has he not sacked Hon Todd McClay as Minister of Trade given that he has misled him, the media and the public about threats to three of our largest export industries in our largest export market?

2. HON ANNETTE KING to the Minister of Health: Which statement is correct on the number of people being refused a first specialist assessment, that it “has never been collected” as he said in the House on 23 July 2015 or that “Labour sent back more patients” as he said on Radio New Zealand yesterday?

3. GRANT ROBERTSON to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement that only 5% of new houses being built are affordable, which means that less than 500 affordable homes were built in Auckland last year, and in light of this why does he not just adopt Labour’s KiwiBuild programme to build 100,000 affordable homes over the next ten years?

4. JACINDA ARDERN to the Minister of Social Development: Is it acceptable to not fully fund CYFs frontline social workers wages by a staggering $109 million, and can she guarantee that children in need of care and protection are not at risk as a result of the loss of 121 CYFs frontline social workers across the country since 2010?

5. CHRIS HIPKINS to the Minister of Education: Does she agree with the ACT party that the public service should not fund advocacy; if so, is she satisfied with her Government’s decision to dish out $500,000 to a charter school advocacy group without holding a competitive tender process?

6. HON NANAIA MAHUTA to the Minister of Conservation: Does she agree with Chris Bishop who said on TVNZ Breakfast this morning that the Government achieving its Predator Free NZ project would be akin to man landing on the moon, if so, does she expect it to cost $3.5 billion per attempt and have repeated launch failures?

BONUS QUESTION: GRANT ROBERTSON to the Minister of Finance: Will he be including Steven Joyce’s twitter account as an unspecified fiscal risk in the next Budget?

ENDS

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