Foster-Bell Paul; Tisch LindsayOMBUDSMEN (COST RECOVERY) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingDebate resumed.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua tēnā koe. E ngā mema o Te Whare Pāremata o Aotearoa tēnā koutou katoa. It is a pleasure to rise to take a call on the Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill in this first reading debate and I want to begin by firstly congratulating the member David Parker on having his bill drawn and actually on the constructive and well-reasoned approach that he takes to all measures but to this bill in particular which I am sure is a very very well-intentioned piece of legislation.I think it is important to reflect on the fact that New Zealand is well served by our Ombudsmen. It was a very positive innovation when it was brought into place here in 1975 well ahead of many equivalent jurisdictions. We took I guess some guidance from our friends in Scandinavia which are also countries that are rated very very highly in terms of good governance a lack of corruption and transparency of Government.I think it was Denmark that first introduced an Ombudsman in 1955—so 20 years before New Zealand introduced this. And of other countries with which we might compare ourselves for instance Canada another common law jurisdiction with Her Majesty the Queen as head of State—at the provincial level it began to introduce ombudsmen or officers equivalent to an Ombudsman such as an inspector-general or a public advocate. The term parliamentary commissioner is also used and reflects a similar functionality. The provinces of Canada introduced ombudsmen throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s.But we were certainly ahead of our Australian friends who introduced them a year after us in 1976 the Austrians in 1977 and other countries such as Barbados which waited until 1980. The Belgians did not introduce an Ombudsman until 1997.Matt Doocey: Only 170 more countries to go.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Ha ha! Gibraltar was not until 1999. The EU which of course purports to be a very well-run and transparent supranational organisation did not introduce the function of an Ombudsman until 2013. So we were leaders in this but also the service of the ombudsmen and the transparency that they provide—particularly in as the member David Parker has referred to the investigation and follow-up around Official Information Act (OIA) requests particularly those where the person making the request is not satisfied with some element of the response—is very important and it is something that we take seriously.So we are committed to the Office of the Ombudsmen but the reason that I will not be supporting the bill in this debate is that we actually have no reason to believe that the Office of the Ombudsmen is in any way underfunded. I think when this bill was introduced there may have been greater cause to believe that some closer look at the provision of funding for the office was required but I suspect it has been overtaken by events and I hope that some of the information that I hope to relate in this debate might convince members that that is indeed the case.We believe that the office is not underfunded and actually the imposition of a cost recovery scheme in and of itself would not be without risk and it may actually undermine some aspects of the complaints process. In fact we think that there are—Hon David Parker: How? How would it do that?PAUL FOSTER-BELL: —several other mechanisms by which productivity of the Ombudsman's office has been improved and I will go into those Mr Parker.Since this bill was added to the ballot in 2012 the increase in funding for the Office of the Ombudsmen has been about two-thirds. The baseline funding back in 2012 was $9 million and the Ombudsman received $15.2 million in the last year's Budget. So that is an increase of two-thirds. From the numbers we have had a look at the productivity rate of the office has similarly increased. We have seen a fall in the number of complaints on hand which is now down to 1339 and the figures that we have been provided with suggest that the backlog that the office is working through should be halved by June of this year—so we are talking next month—and completely cleared by the end of June 2018 which is a year earlier than had been initially planned by the office.The figures to hand show that more than 70 percent of the complaints received since 1 July 2016 have been resolved within 3 months of receipt and this rate is currently heading towards 90 percent. It is the view of the Office of the Ombudsmen that by the year 2020 no complaint will take more than 12 months to resolve. We have to bear in mind that we are dealing in some cases with complex complaints that maybe run to many many pages that are absolutely peppered with detail and as the member said some official information that is released contains multiple redactions and there may be multiple causes for complaint within any one release.I would want to point out to the House that the redactions that are made in information released from Government departments are often made for incredibly good reasons and for important reasons and as a former official during my 10 years with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade—I had no responsibility I should comment on redacting any of the live sheep export information. The gentleman is actually Sheikh Hamood Al Khalaf not Mr Ali Al Hamood as the member says. But I did not deal with that particular case in terms of redactions. But in redacting information most of the officials whom I have seen in practice take their job very very seriously and under section 6 of the Official Information Act redactions are made for important reasons. So section 6(a) for instance removes information that prejudices the national security of New Zealand and the defence of the Realm. This is a very important point. This is the first responsibility of any Government to ensure that information being released will not prejudice the security of our country.Section 6(b) includes information that is entrusted to us from other countries and that we have accepted on the promise that we will not release it. The maintenance of law is covered by section 6(c). And we go on—the safety of people so information pertaining for instance to the operations of New Zealand personnel abroad would often be covered under section 6(d) or the economy of New Zealand—information that may be damaging or injurious during trade negotiations. There are some very good reasons why that information is not released publicly at the time and it may be 20 or 30 years down the track. I would note that many departments are now taking a proactive approach to going through information that can be released publicly even before any period of time has expired when it might otherwise have been looked at. They are proactively working through their archives. But my point is that there are often good reasons why information should be withheld and the information that we have seen including comments from the Office of the Ombudsmen is that the processes that it has are working well.So some of the changes in its practices that have improved the performance of the office and are delivering much better results are changing the focus on an early resolution and adopting more flexible practices in its office. This includes for instance transitioning to working almost entirely electronically and undertaking much more of its interaction with Government departments by phone calls rather than—telephone interviews which can be documented and duly recorded minuted and used to form a proper record. But of course it is much quicker and easier not to mention cheaper in terms of travel than necessarily going to the offices of the Government departments and agencies in question.It has also employed some specialised staff who have a degree of expertise in the area that they are working on. This is not merely a legal and administrative role; sometimes a specific subject matter knowledge is advantageous in terms of resolving the complaint or the query in a more timely but also hopefully more accurate fashion. It works very closely now with the State Services Commission and it has been proactively improving the general understanding of how the Official Information Act works throughout the public sector.The member mentioned journalists—the media who often rely on the OIA as a means to quite rightly hold the Government to account but also to gather information that might be the source for newsworthy publication or it might in fact corroborate other people whom they have interviewed in their processes. I think the general understanding of how the OIA works is good among Government departments and there may be even further gains that can be had by ensuring that others also understand how it should work. And they have produced guides and moved material—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member's time has expired.