Enough numbers, let’s talk process

Once the Budget Statement is delivered, what happens next? The House looks beyond the initial announcement to the three different processes that follow it, sometimes concurrently.

The focus of budget coverage is, of course, all about the numbers. Hundreds and thousands of numbers. Enough numbers to last a month, or as a budget speech would describe a month... a generous 120 days across the four year spending period.

Instead of talking numbers, let's focus on the process. What happens next for Parliament? There are three parallel lines of action that begin after the Budget Statement. Here they are:

The second reading of the Estimates legislation (a.k.a. The Budget Debate)

The first is the continuing process of passing the legislation which contains the budget - known as the Appropriations. The Minister of Finance's speech is an intro to the Second Reading of that bill (note: there is no first reading debate because the question 'should we have a budget bill' is taken as a given).

The second reading debate is also the eight-hour long Budget Debate which began on Thursday with 20 minute long speeches from the party leaders.

At that point it was paused until the next sitting week (Tuesday June 25th), and the third parallel line of action kicked into gear.

Select Committee Scrutiny

Slightly earlier than that (on paper at least), the second line of action is taken by the Finance and Expenditure Committee which divides up the various sections (votes) within the budget and allocates them between the twelve Subject Select Committees.

The committees are already preparing for their examinations of their own areas of expertise, in a week-long in-depth inquisition of ministers called Scrutiny Week (June 17-21). The results of that committee scrutiny will return to the House as part of its continuing consideration of the budget.

And, yes, the Budget Debate and the committee scrutiny are two different parts of the process for the estimates legislation - occurring concurrently.

Urgent Bills

In the House, the second reading debate is interrupted by the desire to begin debating the specifics. This is the third line of action that occurs - moving the House into urgency in order to debate a list of bills that the Government would like progressed, or even passed entirely.

Post-budget urgency is (at least initially), focused on bills that enable key and urgent aspects of the budget, like tax changes; but to varying degrees governments also use this opportunity to debate other, wider policies.

For more on the urgency debate see our Friday story, and for more about the Budget Debate, see our Sunday story.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details