Hughes Gareth: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-General 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Gareth: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-General 
[Sitting date: 05 April 2012. Volume:679;Page:1748. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Speaker. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support the motion. The Green Party supports the appropriation through the report tabled by the Officers of Parliament Committee. We agree with the statement made by the Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee that it is important to maintain the independence and for the Officers of Parliament Committee to use its functions under the Public Finance Act to provide recommendations for the appropriations for these three offices. 
The Officers of Parliament Committee report tabled shows the detail for each of the three votes. The committee heard submissions from the three offices and essentially the Office of the Auditor-General the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and the Office of the Ombudsmen received the funding they requested. Another member who is on the committee may like to clarify this point if I am incorrect but to clarify for the member Grant Robertson as I understand it the $1 million figure was raised in the financial review in the Government Administration Committee but the Office of the Ombudsmen requested only $300000 in the Officers of Parliament Committee. But I acknowledge the point made that there is a significant context and environment in which these offices are involved and that is we are seeing significant cuts to the public sector. That stress that we are seeing in those offices is also shared across the wider public sector with lowering morale at the moment. 
We would like to acknowledge the roles of the Auditor-General the two ombudsmen and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright and also acknowledge the staff in the offices. We think they do good work. They are important to our democracy. Looking at the ombudsmen first up the two ombudsmen do important work for our democracy monitoring complaints for the Official Information Act and they have an important corrections role. I note that if we ever run into funding problems in the future and we have to have a sponsorship-run wooden spoon awards evening for complainants under the Local Government Act and the Official Government Act it would be the Prime Minister who would get the wooden spoon award presented by the ombudsmen for the record in the last financial year of 15 complaints. 
Unfortunately what we are seeing is very poor timeliness from the Office of the Ombudsmen. It wanted and aimed to complete 90 percent of all matters within a month but it completed only 66. Unfortunately in all those key performance indicators around timeliness the office is failing to meet them not because of the dedication of the staff—or because of the lack of dedication of the staff—but simply because of the lack of resources. What we are seeing—and what we heard in the financial review report of the Office of the Ombudsmen—is that it is quite literally sinking under the weight of complaints. The baseline funding works on the assumption that it will be dealing with 800 to 1000 cases. What we saw in the last financial year was 1854 cases and in some periods it was as high as 2000. It is sinking under the weight of complaints. Unfortunately for the staff they have not seen a pay rise since 2007. I think that is scandalous. They have not seen a pay rise since 2007 yet backbenchers in this Chamber over the equivalent period have seen a pay rise of 12.3 percent. It is not fair and what we want to see is good baseline funding so that we can pay these people appropriately. 
Thirdly what we are also seeing is the Office of the Ombudsmen unable because of a lack of resources to promote its services to the public. So we welcome the report of the Officers of Parliament Committee to advise the Government to amend section 17 of the Ombudsmen Act. We welcome that legislation. We welcome hearing submissions in the select committee as to how we can streamline it. But the key thing we cannot lose is that an ombudsman is actually the last place people can go. We have to make sure that last place is protected. 
Looking at the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment we would like to acknowledge the quality work of Jan Wright and also of her office. I was particularly impressed by the lignite report. The recent water report is a significant topical issue and it is good to see the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment engaged in that debate. I wholeheartedly welcome the fracking report. It is a pity we cannot see what would be the responsible step which is a moratorium until the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment reports back but we will keep campaigning on that. 
The biggest challenge the office is facing—and what the Green Party would like to offer to this debate in the Chamber—is the new role of environmental monitoring. It has been signalled well through the media that environmental monitoring will be shifting from the Ministry for the Environment to the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. The Green Party thinks it is on balance a pretty good idea. You have got the Ministry for the Environment responsible for policy and regulation and it makes sense to have a separate body responsible for monitoring. It is an appropriate agency. I think it does have the skills but what it lacks are resources. The challenge for the office is that it is likely to be lumped with this task for next year but it has not been able to get any extra appropriation to start gearing up for the significant new workload because there is no legislation. So we would like to offer to the Government benches that we would like to support that legislation. We hope that we can see that legislation soon because we would like to engage with it get it cracking and get it passed so that we can see that office prepare for and do quality work on environmental monitoring. 
So in summary the Green Party supports the recommendations in the report—the appropriations—and we are glad to be essentially giving baseline funding and other additional funding increases to these offices. But like the Labour Party we also think they are not enough to do the important work needed and we would like in future years to be granting more significant funding increases to these very important offices. Kia ora.