Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you very much—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh I beg your pardon. The question is That the motion be agreed to.CHRIS PENK: Thank you again Madam Deputy Speaker. It's one of those situations that if you hear a word repeated enough times it just sounds ridiculous. I wasn't counting the number of times that the Minister Peeni Henare said the word ombudsman" but he said the word "ombudsman" a large number of times to the point where the word "ombudsman" sounded ridiculous. Then I realised that actually it was the whole concept of this being an amendment bill brought in front of the Parliament in its own right that was ridiculous. It's not the kind of bill that you would clear a jam in the photocopier in the office for get it out the other side and understand what its effect would be on the New Zealand Parliament and this wonderful nation of ours and indeed wonder how on earth we could have survived without it.There's not much to this bill. We've heard a pretty valiant effort by the Minister to explain its meaning and effect and he did well I think to squeeze out a few minutes on that. But actually in my contribution I would like to highlight that while it doesn't do much what little it does is not particularly helpful.The Minister started by talking about the role of the parliamentary Ombudsman and I think he used the phrase "Officer of Parliament". He might equally have used "creature of Parliament"—meaning of course that the role of Ombudsman is created by Parliament. That's all perfectly accurate and fine as far as it goes but the effect of this bill if anything is to give a power to the Minister to safeguard the name "Ombudsman". Now the Minister is by definition a member of the executive branch so he or she is actually not the appropriate guardian to hold the reputation and the import of this name safe for the New Zealand people. So really it sort of seems to me "quite bizarre ridiculous and redundant" is about the best thing that we can say for it.It's difficult for us on this side of the House to support a bill that is pretty well devoid of meaning but that meaning which it has is hard to support. I think particularly we might ask ourselves what problem it's intended to solve and what we are left with is an analysis where we've got a low risk of something that would have very low effects even if it were to occur. I don't know what kind of analysis the Government parties have received to convince themselves that this is worth concerning themselves with or whether there's been a recent outbreak of people calling themselves Ombudsmen—Dr Duncan Webb: There has.CHRIS PENK: —for example and in a way that actually causes genuine confusion. I note that Dr Duncan "Ombudsman" Webb over there is chiming in.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Proper names please.CHRIS PENK: I beg your pardon. I'm sorry Madam Deputy Speaker. In fact I've proved his point if anything: it's just so easy to have the word or the name "Ombudsman" slip out and to cause real confusion and heartache accordingly.For these reasons I think that we can all very much look forward to the remaining stages of this bill if it should pass through and some pretty meaty submissions to the select committee. I just hope that it doesn't in fact—no doubt it will go to the Justice Committee as is being proposed. That's a committee on which I often—Hon Maggie Barry: Government and admin.CHRIS PENK: —substitute but hopefully not—oh Government and administration. Thank you. The Hon Maggie Barry points out that it will be the Governance and Administration Committee which is one that I don't often substitute on thank goodness and neither does she so that's possibly the motivation for her looking into that aspect. Anyway with no further ado I think we've probably said enough about this for ever but certainly for my contribution. I'll probably stretch the truth at the risk of misleading Parliament and say I look forward to further contributions on this bill. Thank you."