Goudie Sandra: State Sector Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Goudie Sandra: State Sector Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7329] 
SANDRA GOUDIE (NZ National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I would like to speak to Part 2 of schedule 2 in Supplementary Order Paper 107. I am getting a little confused between the Supplementary Order Paper and the bill because one has overtaken the other. But I guess what it does is exemplify the fact that we have not had the opportunity to have this bill go through the proper process of a select committee to allow the public to make submissions on it. By so doing the public can throw up all the concerns the anomalies and the discrepancies that so clearly exist within this bill. I think that is a shame. It is an indictment on this Minister and an indictment on this current Labour Government that it can put up something that is so ill-conceived and is such a transgression of justice upon the public service sector. 
I reiterate the concerns that we have already expressed with regard to the legislative change guidelines on process and content. Clearly they have been ignored. I think it is shameful that this substantial amendment is not being referred back to the select committee. Perhaps the Minister would like to take a call and explain to me and to everybody else and to the New Zealand public why no one is being given an opportunity to debate this process further to debate this bill further and to have a lot of the questions answered that have been raised here today. Some of the substantive questions come— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Can I just bring the member back to the schedules. 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: Absolutely! These are the very schedules that we have had no chance to debate and to look at through the select committee process and the receiving of submissions. Where is the commentary that should be addressing the concerns raised by these very matters? There has not been any chance for questions to be answered about the substance of this Supplementary Order Paper the concerns that have been raised about it and about matters contained within the schedules and for commentary to be made about the substantial concerns that have been raised. These concerns are from none other than the New Zealand Law Society as my learned colleagues and I myself raised earlier. 
Stephen Franks from the ACT party has raised some considerable concern about the merger of the Department for Courts with the Ministry of Justice particularly in relation to privacy provisions. Who is going to answer the questions he raises? Will this bill go back to the select committee so that some consideration can be given to these concerns? No that does not appear to be going to happen. This Minister does not want to hear what those concerns are and does not want any response as to how those concerns are being addressed and being provided for within this bill and whether the bill is justified. He wants to ignore the process of transparency and the accountability of any changes to the State sector having to come through this Parliament. 
This Parliament is for the public of New Zealand. It is for the people of New Zealand. It is for them to look at and see the efficacy of any changes in the State sector that any Government is going to undertake. We fully support that happening. We fully support that the public can hold this Parliament to account for the State sector and any changes within it. But clearly this Government does not support that. It wants to do everything behind closed doors. It wants to be able to make any changes it wants without being accountable to the public. That is the whole point of requiring the process through Parliament for any changes in the State sector and that is the point of accountability. This Government thinks it is so crash-hot on that point yet it is not. It will deny the public—the people of New Zealand—the opportunity to make it accountable. It is no less evident in question time in the House which is an absolute disgrace. 
We would like the Minister to take a call on the schedules and answer the very real and pertinent concerns that have been raised by Stephen Franks about the Department for Courts being included in the Ministry of Justice.