﻿Mr SPEAKER: Question No 9, Barbara Kuriger.
BARBARA KURIGER (National— Taranaki - King Country)
to the Minister for Primary Industries:
What reports has he received on Government initiatives
to help attract more young people into careers
in the primary industries?
Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries):
At this year's Mystery Creek Fieldays the Government launched
Growing our future, which is a programme that celebrates
and promotes the broad range of careers in the primary sector.
We have developed a series of videos with well-known and everyday NZers
working in the primary sector, including Richie McCaw and Sir David Fagan.
These videos have already been viewed over 27,000 times online.
We have also engaged 135 primary industry ambassadors, with more
being trained as we speak. These ambassadors go into classrooms
up and down the country to raise awareness of the huge range
of existing career paths within the primary sector, and they have
already made over 500 visits to over 150 schools. It is very good news.
Barbara Kuriger: Why is this initiative so important
to the future of the primary sector?
Hon NATHAN GUY: Good question. In 2014 the Ministry for Primary Industries
released a report that highlighted that the primary sector will need
to attract around 50,000 more people into employment by 2025 if we are to meet
our export double-the-value growth target. Over half of these workers will require
a tertiary or level 4 qualification. There is capacity in our education system
to meet this need, and over the last three Budgets the Government has increased
tuition subsidies for tertiary agriculture qualifications
by around 50%. There is a challenge for all of us to inspire more young men
and women to obtain good qualifications and become the next robotic engineer,
food safety scientist, or, indeed, environmental planner to work
in the engine room of the primary sector.
Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
I raise a point of order under Standing Order 386, "Content of Replies"—386(2):
"The reply to any question must be concise..." That was not, and has not been.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Speaking to the point of order—
Hon Annette King: Oh, this will be long.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, I can make it longer, if you need that—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, I will just hear the point of order.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It is somewhat
of a contradiction, given the pleading that was put in front of you
by Mr Robertson earlier—
Mr SPEAKER: Can I have the point of order.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: —that he now insists that answers are concise.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Mr Robertson, I ruled,
actually, on this matter yesterday. Questions should be concise,
answers should be concise, and that was certainly getting to the stage
where I was about to rise to my feet to curtail it, but—[Interruption]
Order! But at the end of the day, the Speaker is the sole judge
as to the length of the answer.
[MEMBERS INTERJECT]
Richard Prosser: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
With regard to the discussion earlier and the point raised by the Hon Peter Dunne,
looking at the two Speakers' rulings from Speaker Arthur and Speaker Kidd
in 1984 and 1999—
Mr SPEAKER: Can I just have the reference, please?
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Page number.
Richard Prosser: 190/1 and 190/2. Certainly, in the time that I have been
in this House, Mr Speaker, many questions are prefaced with both those words:
"given" or "in the light". I wonder, perhaps, if you might give consideration,
in order to assist the order of the House, to making a further statement
clarifying where and when that may be used, because, if a member begins
a supplementary with a statement that introduces new information,
that is one situation. But if the Minister has answered the question
and a member is then changing tack, perhaps, with a line—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Bring the point to a conclusion.
Richard Prosser: —of supplementary questions, it may be relevant to that.
Mr SPEAKER: I will certainly have a look at that but my inclination,
at the moment, is that the Standing Orders Committee has been called
together to review Standing Orders and Speakers' rulings, and that is
the opportune time to have a look at it. But, certainly, over time
the content and the concept of a supplementary question—
over the time that I have been here, which is a little longer
than the member's—has tended to broaden. I do not think that
is a bad thing. I think it is more colloquial, if you like.
It gives the Opposition, I think, more opportunity. But I will raise
the matter through the Standing Orders Committee—that is
the appropriate time to do it.
Question No 10.
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