Street Maryan: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11661. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour):It is a pleasure to take my first call—it will not be my last call—in the debate on this bill because it is of real significance. I am aware that we are on Part 2 and Part 2 is what I wish to direct my comments to but just before I go to that I do want to note the timeliness of this bill because of course there has been a number of celebrations during the course of this year of 100 years of quality public services. This is the same year that the Public Service Association is celebrating its own existence and we celebrate with it the delivery of quality public services. So when we come to looking at the State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill and at this part which I am going to detail in a moment it seems to me to be a significant bill—and obviously a very substantial bill—to bring in this year. I hope that because of the nature of the accommodations that have been reached during the course of the selectcommittee process this bill will be durable and will contribute to the improved delivery of public services.To get to Part 2 I too want to follow my colleague Louisa Wall and talk about the multi-category appropriation type which is a new appropriation type to be provided for and enacted under Part 2 of the bill. I am aware that there are amendments to this part that have been agreed to across the House which include the full traceability of funds from year to year. I want to state my support for this by using an example where that has not been so apparent in recent times and I want to refer to the appropriation for Whānau Ora.The Whānau Ora appropriation was a health initiative—in fact the words say that. It was a health initiative and one might have thought it would come under the rubric of the Minister of Health and so might have been examinable through the estimates and appropriations that come before select committees for consideration. But no when the Minister of Health appeared before the Health Committee to justify health appropriations in the last few years he was unable—or unwilling really but had made himself deliberately unable—to offer transparency around the appropriation of Government moneys for the delivery of the Whānau Ora programme. So we were not able to examine the Minister who was best qualified to know whether this health initiative was achieving health outcomes.My concern is not that the appropriation was handed over by that Minister there the Minister of Health to Te Puni Kōkiri and the Minister of Māori Affairs to answer to but that it was taken away from the transparency that needed to be delivered to the purpose for which that appropriation was established. In the setting up of a new appropriation type to be called a multi-category appropriation I hope that this means together with the agreed amendment that will require full traceability of funds from year to year that if any appropriation—let us take the example—for health purposes is to be diverted out of the jurisdiction if you like the care or the oversight of the Minister of Health to somebody else then that is entirely traceable by cross-referencing by calling it a multi-category appropriation and by ensuring that the numbers of Ministers who are responsible for that appropriation are able to come before a select committee for examination and that the essential scrutiny can be applied.What has happened if I go back to my Whānau Ora appropriation example—which is an example of bad practice I think not best practice—is that nobody seems to be able to find what precisely has been done with the money that was appropriated. I would have thought that Mr Ryall as Minister of Health could easily come in before a select committee—a man of his ability—and said: “This is what has happened with the Whānau Ora money. We have done it jointly with Te Puni Kōkiri but it is a health initiative so it sits under my portfolio.”If such things are to happen and a health appropriation is to go somewhere else let us use this facility that this part of the bill now gives us and call it a multi-category appropriation so that it may go across departments across ministries and across purposes—not at cross purposes but across purposes—but at the same time the appropriation and the accountability for it remain entirely transparent and accountable. That is what a good Public Finance Act ought to deliver. That is the quality that our State servants despite their battering over the last 5 years wish to provide for the citizens of this country. If this bill can help us deliver that kind of accountability and transparency across increasingly complex areas of activity by the State then that is a good thing. But let us make sure that that is what happens to this provision.I absolutely respect the good intentions of the members opposite and I respect the fact that members on the Finance and Expenditure Committee have agreed on improvements to this bill. Having been very very involved—not as a member of Parliament but as a very interested citizen and activist—in the development of the firstState Sector Act in 1986 and in fact having written the Labour Party’s paper in opposition to it I have a real interest in how these kinds of services are delivered. The integrity of our Public Service structures are critically important to the quality of our Government the quality of our accountable apparatus the quality of the transparency of that apparatus and our reputation for governance and transparency. We have a very fine reputation for that. It is my hope that this new appropriation type the multi-category appropriation type can be used to ensure that this Public Finance Act now amended for modern times will deliver exactly the kind of transparency and accountability that a complex piece of legislation like this and the complex operation of the delivery of State services require in a modern society.I am very supportive of this. I have great optimism for this part of the bill and I hope that we can proceed with this in a way that in the end can make us all proud of the Public Finance Act and the delivery of State services under its jurisdiction. Thank you.