Written questions

Asked by

Barbara Edmonds

Member for Mana · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What instructions, if any, has the Minister given to the Chief Executives they are responsible about the public service headcount reduction targets or baseline savings exercise as part of Budget 2026?

Asked by

Barbara Edmonds

Member for Mana · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  Has the Minister instructed any chief executive not to action the head count reduction targets or baseline savings exercise as part of Budget 2026, and if so, which chief executives?

Asked by

Barbara Edmonds

Member for Mana · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What instructions, if any, has the Minister given to the Chief Executives they are responsible about the public service headcount reduction targets or baseline savings exercise as part of Budget 2026?

Asked by

Barbara Edmonds

Member for Mana · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  Has the Minister instructed any chief executive not to action the head count reduction targets or baseline savings exercise as part of Budget 2026, and if so, which chief executives?

Asked by

Barbara Edmonds

Member for Mana · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What instructions, if any, has the Minister given to the Chief Executives they are responsible about the public service headcount reduction targets or baseline savings exercise as part of Budget 2026?

Asked by

Barbara Edmonds

Member for Mana · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  Has the Minister instructed any chief executive not to action the head count reduction targets or baseline savings exercise as part of Budget 2026, and if so, which chief executives?

Asked by

Barbara Edmonds

Member for Mana · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What instructions, if any, has the Minister given to the Chief Executives they are responsible about the public service headcount reduction targets or baseline savings exercise as part of Budget 2026?

Asked by

Deborah Russell

List MP · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What aides-mémoire, briefings, memos, notes, reports, or any other advice, if any, has the Minister or their Office received during the week beginning 29 June 2026, listed by agency, title and date received?

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What aides-mémoire, briefings, memos, notes, reports, or any other advice, if any, has the Minister or their Office received during the week beginning 29 June 2026, listed by agency, title and date received?

Asked by

Carmel Sepuloni

Member for Kelston · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What aides-mémoire, briefings, memos, notes, reports, or any other advice, if any, has the Minister or their Office received during the week beginning 29 June 2026, listed by agency, title and date received?

Asked by

Deborah Russell

List MP · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What papers, if any, did the Minister take to Cabinet during the week beginning 29 June 2026, by title and date?

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What papers, if any, did the Minister take to Cabinet during the week beginning 29 June 2026, by title and date?

Asked by

Deborah Russell

List MP · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What papers, if any, did the Minister take to Cabinet during the week beginning 29 June 2026, by title and date?

Asked by

Carmel Sepuloni

Member for Kelston · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What papers, if any, did the Minister take to Cabinet during the week beginning 29 June 2026, by title and date?

Asked by

Mike Davidson

List MP · Green Party

• (matches this search)

  Does the Minister believe that Councils leading tourism related activities are aligned with the core services described in the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill, and if so, why?

Asked by

Mike Davidson

List MP · Green Party

• (matches this search)

  What advice, if any, has the Minister received on the cost to local government for leading tourism-related initiatives?

Asked by

Mike Davidson

List MP · Green Party

• (matches this search)

  What communication, if any, has the Minister had with his colleague, the Minister of Tourism, about the Tourism Strategy system roles, especially leading "Marketing to New Zealanders to travel and attend events within New Zealand is…

Asked by

Mike Davidson

List MP · Green Party

• (matches this search)

  What advice, if any, has the Minister received from the local government sector regarding funding tourism-related initiatives, given the proposed restrictions on local government in the Local Government (Systems Improvement) Amendment Bill?

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  Did the Office of Treaty Settlements advise that, without an explicit exclusion for Treaty settlement arrangements, existing and future Treaty settlements could be compromised or placed at risk by the Government's proposal to amend the…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What advice, if any, has the Minister received on whether water service providers that sought to have water services strategies in place by 30 June 2026 were able to do so?

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What advice, if any, has the Minister received on whether the current postal voting system contains sufficient safeguards to detect and prevent electoral fraud?

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  Was an actual estimated per-election-cycle cost of transitioning all local elections to booth voting included in briefing LG20258140, and if so, why were they withheld from the public?

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What criteria, if any, will the Minister apply in deciding whether to use the secondary legislation power in the Amendment Paper to the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill to exclude particular committee types from the…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What advice, if any, has the Minister received on whether the policy to 'prevent non-democratically elected members' affects joint committees established between local authorities and iwi under co-governance arrangements that are not…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  Why did the Minister choose to introduce the changes to the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill via an Amendment Paper at the Committee of the Whole House stage, bypassing select committee scrutiny, rather than through…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  Does the Minister consider the evidence base for amendments to the Local Government Act 2002 to be adequate, when the Department of Internal Affairs' Regulatory Impact Analysis panel found the RIS could not meet the consulted criterion and…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  How many council committees currently include iwi or hapū representatives appointed under Treaty settlement or redress legislation who hold voting rights, and did the Minister seek or receive that figure before bringing the proposal…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• 30169 (matches this search)

  Does the Minister think that skipping the standard exposure draft consultation process for the wastewater regulations was a mistake, and what specific process change, if any, has the Minister put in place to prevent equivalent drafting…

• 30173 (matches this search)

  Was an exposure draft of the Water Services (Wastewater Environmental Performance Standards) Regulations 2025 released for technical review before they were made on 17 November 2025, and if not, why not?

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What was the cost, if any, to the Water Services Authority of the additional stakeholder engagement and statutory consultation required under the Water Services Act 2021 to correct the drafting errors identified after the wastewater…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What estimate, if any, has the Minister received of the additional consenting costs to councils and ratepayers attributable to the drafting errors in the wastewater standards, and the delay in correcting them?

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  How many resource consent applications were lodged or processed between 19 December 2025 and the date the technical amendments for wastewater services came into force, and what advice, if any, has the Minister received on whether those…

Asked by

Francisco Hernandez

List MP · Green Party

• (matches this search)

  What events or meetings, if any, did the Minister decline to attend during the week beginning 22 June 2026 , including location, event description, and attendees?

Asked by

Francisco Hernandez

List MP · Green Party

• (matches this search)

  What advice, reports, briefings, aide memoires, or any other documents has the Minister or any member of their Office received, if any, during the week beginning 22 June 2026, by title and date?

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What advice, if any, has the Minister received on whether the Commerce Commission has sufficient resourcing to monitor compliance with the ring-fencing requirements across all water service providers, given the number of new water…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What advice, if any, has the Minister received on whether the funding impact statement requirements as designed are achievable for smaller councils and newly established water organisations that may lack the financial reporting…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What assurance, if any, has the Minister received that the draft funding impact statement template attached to the April 2026 Cabinet paper has been tested with water service providers, including newly established water organisations,…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  Why did the Minister propose replacing the "increase (decrease) in reserves" line item with "increase (decrease) in working capital" in water services funding impact statements, and what advice, if any, did the Minister receive on whether…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What advice, if any, has the Minister received on how the funding impact statement framework interacts with the Commerce Commission's ring-fencing enforcement role under the Local Government (Water Services) Act 2025, and whether the…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What criteria, if any, will the Minister apply in approving matters that arise during the drafting of the Local Government (Water Services) Order in Council that may be required to align with the funding impact statement decisions, and…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What advice, if any, has the Minister received on whether the requirement for water service providers to disclose cumulative internal debt balances is sufficient to prevent ratepayer funds from being used to cross-subsidise non-water…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What guidance, if any, has the Minister issued to water service providers on how to record transfers of funds between water services and non-water services in their funding impact statements, and how will those transfers be monitored to…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  Why did the Minister propose that water services funding impact statements should follow the form of existing Local Government Act 2002 funding impact statements rather than developing a purpose-built framework, and what advice, if any,…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  When does the Minister next intend to bring substantive advice on local electoral reform to Cabinet, given that no such work is planned for 2026?

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  When, if at all, did the Minister discuss the future viability of postal voting for local elections with the Minister of Transport or officials responsible for New Zealand Post's deed of service, and what was the outcome of those…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What advice, if any, has the Minister received on whether the Local Electoral Act 2001 and Local Electoral Regulations 2001 require amendment to support any council wishing to use booth voting at the 2028 elections, and when does the…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What specific action, if any, does the Minister intend to take before the 2028 local elections to address voter turnout falling to 39 percent nationally — the lowest since postal voting began in 1989?

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  What estimate, if any, has the Minister received of the additional per-election cost to territorial authorities of running local elections if regional council elections are abolished under the Simplifying Local Government reforms, given…

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  When did the Minister decide to abandon his March 2025 direction to officials to transfer responsibility for local elections to the Electoral Commission by 2028, who was consulted before that decision was made, and was Cabinet informed?

Asked by

Tangi Utikere

Member for Palmerston North · Labour Party

• (matches this search)

  How many councils have, in the current or previous term, established committees in which non-democratically elected members held voting rights and the committee had delegated decision-making authority, and what advice, if any, has the…