Chris Hipkins

MP for Rimutaka

Shadow Leader of the House

MEDIA STATEMENT

28 July 2016

Questions for (Oral) Answer - Thursday 28th 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 did his Government request the removal of the requirement for 10 per cent of affordable housing in the Unitary Plan, when his own Finance Minister has admitted only 5 per cent of houses built in the last ten years have been affordable houses?

2. ANNETTE KING to the Minister of Health: Why does he continue to refuse funding for safe sleeping bassinets despite evidence in Northland that shows the introduction of these bassinets has reduced sudden unexpected death of 10 babies a year to three?

3. JACINDA ARDERN to the Minister for Social Development: Why will she not simply adopt Labour's long standing policy of establishing of Ministry for Children so that all New Zealand children have a voice in their future, rather than the ever narrowing focus reflected in her Ministry for Vulnerable Children?

4. CHRIS HIPKINS to the Minister of Education: When was she first made aware that some parents of children attending private schools were falsely claiming tax rebates on school fees and is this why she has proposed to give private schools a greater proportion of taxpayers’ funding while freezing operational funding for state schools?

5. MEKA WHAITIRI to Minister for Maori Development: With 1648 Maori waiting for homes on the June 2016 social housing register, 100 more tangata than in March this year, and 422 people on the waiting list in Waiariki alone, does the Minister accept that his Government’s sell-off of state houses is harming his people?

6. DAVID CUNLIFFE to the Minister for Tertiary Education: Why were 19 ‘high risk’ private training establishments given $32.8 million in taxpayer funding and allowed to enrol 7,500 students last year, but not told they were high risk?

BONUS QUESTION: CHRIS HIPKINS to the Prime Minister: How many Ministers does it take to open a department store and who has ministerial responsibility for David Jones?

ends

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