Dalziel Lianne: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDalziel Lianne: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11693. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East):As colleagues have said Labour actually opposed this bill the State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill at its first reading. I think it is significant that we are now in a position to support its passage through the remaining stages in the House and speaking to clauses 1 and 2 I think that it is an important point to place on the record of the House. It was really picking up the point that Clare Curran ended on and I refer to the commentary from the Labour minority view where we stated that the amendments to the bill provide sufficient protection for Labour to be able to support it as a whole acknowledging that bipartisan consensus on framework legislation of this type is desirable where broad agreement can be forged. Can I just say that that is really important. I think it is absolutely vital. If we can get cross-party consensus on framework legislation then we end up having debates about the detail as it were rather than about the most fundamental aspects. If we can get agreement across party lines on the framework then in fact that is good for New Zealand it is good for certainty it is good for business and it is good for the community as a whole. So that is why I am very pleased that we are able to support the passage of the legislation.But I have been asked to display one more time why this could not come soon enough. Perhaps the Minister in the chair the Minister of Conservation would like to cast his eyes upon this document because this diagram is the Canterbury earthquake recovery. It is actually pretty obvious what is going wrong with the Canterbury earthquake recovery when one looks at this web of particular agencies that do not all connect with each other and certainly do not all connect with the people.When I was the Minister for Small Business and the Minister of Commerce I had undertaken a quality regulation review. What I came out with was a very simple phrase because—and colleagues and Ministers on the other side of the House will know this as well—we do think in silos because we are responsible for an individual silo. We are responsible for the Department of Labour or we are responsible for foreign affairs or weare responsible for a different component of Government. But when Government actually sees itself as all these individual arms that is not how the public sees them. So when business looks at the Government it sees the Government and it says: “Why on earth is the Government asking me for exactly the same information we provided it with last week?”. That is because the public do not see the Inland Revenue Department they do not see ACC they do not see all these individual departments and Crown entities—all of them covered by this legislation. They do not see individual departments and Crown entities; they see the Government and they ask it why it is putting them through the mill yet again. The simple solution that I came up with which I think is a very simple solution is to ask why the many arms of Government cannot extend a single hand to business. Why can they not?In the Canterbury earthquake recovery why cannot the many arms of Government extend a single hand to the people? I personally think actually that in this legislation as we have debated it that has become crystal clear. That is exactly what we need in Christchurch. So I actually think we are on the same page. We actually do understand that the framework has to be across these silos. It has to break down all of the silos. But in Christchurch what has become crystal clear is that it is not just with the Government departments and the Crown entities; it is also all of the organisations that they interact with as well and in Christchurch it is the councils that have to have the silos broken down. So what we have got in Christchurch is we have got the council with its own silos we have got the Government with all of its silos and we have got the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority which looks like it is the overarching organisation because its purpose is to coordinate facilitate and direct all of the issues that relate to the recovery. [Interruption ] Well the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority is in there but it is only one of the many things. All of these squiggly lines tend to lead to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority but the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority does not have any overarching authority and that is the problem.The Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery does not know what the Minister for Building and Construction has been discussing. That has been obvious over the last few weeks. But there are so many other things. The Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery did not know that the Minister of Education had not consulted with the schools before announcing the massive shake-up of the schools. It is not knowing what the left hand and the right hand are doing it is not knowing what the impact that will have on the recovery of Christchurch that is the fundamental flaw. All of that can be fixed if we have our focus on the framework and the framework cannot—cannot—be like this one. We cannot have all of these different lines operating in this particular way. We actually have to have the whole thing as a coordinated whole and meeting the objectives of the recovery.I think that Canterbury has served to provide a very clear example of why this legislation and the approach that this legislation is adopting is so needed. The cross-agency breaking down of silos is absolutely fundamental but I think that you also have to think about the silos that exist within the Government departments themselves. In the Canterbury earthquake—Hon Trevor Mallard: Especially “MoBIE”.Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Yes—the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. I have never understood why the Government decided to put the Department of Labour into a brand new huge expanded organisation after the two reports—Hon Trevor Mallard: It’s because of Steven Joyce.Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Yes but the Pike River coal mine tragedy report would have actually said: “No. Hold off. Do not put the Department of Labour in there rightnow. It might be the right thing to do later but do not do it now.” The second group that you would not put into the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment right now is the Department of Building and Housing. The royal commission report on the building collapses in Christchurch—it is just crazy to have all of these different departments come together.I think this is the fundamental problem: the Government thinks that by putting the departments together it solves the silo problem. It does not. Silos exist within Government departments. All that has done is made the silos less obvious but they exist all the same. If I use as an example the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority which has been set up for a single purpose it is riddled with silos. It has got one silo for economic development it has got one silo for the central city development it has got one silo for social recovery it has got another silo for the built environment and the natural environment and it has another one for cultural matters. So what it has done is manage to create silos in a brand new department where it actually could have ensured that there were no silos to have to break down. That is the problem that we have got in Christchurch. This legislation—Hon Trevor Mallard: What happened to the doctrine of the indivisibility of the Crown?Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: The indivisibility of the Crown?Hon Trevor Mallard: What happened to that doctrine?Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Well I know it is a doctrine but I do not know how it is relevant to this.Hon Trevor Mallard: Well the silos.Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Yes I know but the silos—Hon Ruth Dyson: Trevor will take a call.Hon Trevor Mallard: I will.Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Oh Trevor is going to take a call to explain the doctrine of indivisibility.I actually think that one of the problems that we have had and I think Ruth Dyson could also comment on this is when you have got reporting lines that do not allow for the money to flow with the decision making. For example back in 2000-and-something we managed to get a high and complex needs formula which had funding directed to it from health education and Child Youth and Family and we got the three together. It was a massive change. We broke down the silos. How long did it take to write the rules for access to the fund? It took 2 years—2 years—to write the rules and that is the problem. We have got to fundamentally change the culture and the cultural change will come about if we start to think about those whole-of-Government outcomes that are so fundamental. Christchurch I think would be a classic case where we could start right away. We do not actually have to wait for the legislation to be passed to do the right thing. Canterbury is waiting for this mishmash to be resolved and—