Robertson Grant: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-General 
Robertson Grant: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-General 
[Volume:672;Page:18486] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to address this Government motion No. 5 in the House today. I say at the outset how much we on the Opposition benches appreciate the work of the Officers of Parliament. As my colleague Chris Hipkins just said essentially the work we are talking about here particularly of the Office of the Ombudsmen and the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General is the transparency of Government and the accountability of Government which are critical elements in our democracy. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment also plays as my colleague Kennedy Graham noted a very important role in making sure that issues of a fundamental nature to our lifestyle in New Zealand are raised inside this Parliament. 
I note with interest Rahui Katene’s comments in relation to the possibility of an Officer of Parliament to deal with Treaty-related issues. From time to time these ideas arise. Another idea that has been debated in this Parliament recently was the question of whether the Chief Archivist should be an Officer of Parliament particularly given the changes that the current Government has made to bring Archives New Zealand inside the Department of Internal Affairs. I can absolutely understand both the point Rahui Katene made and those who want to see someone like the Chief Archivist brought in as an Officer of Parliament because of the independence that being an Officer of Parliament provides because it is a fundamental check on Government. Constitutional roles to do with the Treaty and Archives New Zealand play such an important part in our constitutional and democratic infrastructure. I think those ideas are worthy of consideration because we need that independent check within our unicameral system and the Officers of Parliament play an excellent role in that. There is a limit of course to what we can cover under an Officer of Parliament - type role. I am not necessarily agreeing with the proposal Rahui Katene put forward but I think when we look at our overall democratic infrastructure we need to look seriously at the role that Officers of Parliament can play. 
The offices we are dealing with today in this particular notice of motion are as has already been pointed out the Ombudsmen the Controller and Auditor-General and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. My colleague Chris Hipkins just finished talking at some length about the Ombudsmen. I will add a couple of points to that. I re-emphasise that it is always quite easy to look at statistics in different ways. The Minister who introduced the motion today the Acting Leader of the House proudly stated the difference in terms of the number of complaints involving Ministers but as my colleague Chris Hipkins pointed out there have been 920 complaints about the Official Information Act in the last year of the annual report for the Ombudsmen which is up from 809. That is 111 extra complaints about the Official Information Act. At a time when there has been a review of the Official Information Act that is something the Government should be taking seriously. Its responsibilities are to adhere to the law as it stands today and to ensure that information is available as freely as possible. Those delays in responding to Official Information Act requests are nothing to be proud of. It is something we need to do far better on and it is something where technology should allow us to be far better. 
I note also that in the annual report of the Ombudsmen over half of the overall complaints dealt with by the Ombudsmen relate to the Department of Corrections. I think we are about to see in the Budget next week the Department of Correction becoming our largest Government department. Therein lies the Government’s economic plan: to make the Department of Corrections the largest Government department. I think that shows that there are some wrong priorities in our society. I think we need to ensure that the Department of Corrections is not our largest department that we do not have to build ever more jails in this country and that ever more complaints do not find their way to the Ombudsmen’s office. 
In relation to the review of the Official Information Act it would be good to know from the Government when we will see a response to the Law Commission’s report on that topic. It is a very good report. Sir Geoffrey Palmer released it last year. It is called  
The Public’s Right to Know 
 and it is a very important report because the Official Information Act which came in in 1982 did not foresee the internet and did not foresee the way in which information is now distributed in our society. Although as the report notes the fundamentals of the Official Information Act are sound a number of things could be done to improve it. 
I mention one of those now: the issue of the proactive disclosure of information. I strongly believe that that is something that Government agencies can do far better. I simply cannot see why when a major decision is announced after a Cabinet decision the relevant documents are not released at that time. Those documents are still subject to the withholding requirements within the Official Information Act but the fact is that they could be disclosed when a decision is formally announced by Cabinet. I think that that would increase people’s confidence and trust in the institution of Government. It would also save a lot of wasted time for people who make requests for Cabinet papers and background documents if those documents were released at that time. I believe that is the kind of open Government that any party should want to be part of because it would increase the confidence of the public in our decision-making process. Obviously the role of technology can assist. We have the situation now where emails tweets and text messages are now a part of the record of Government. Ensuring that we have an Act that makes sure those are captured where appropriate is important. There are recommendations within the review about that. 
The review also makes another important recommendation which I would like to think the Government could implement soon. That recommendation is the question of the overuse of the provision for saying that information will soon be publicly available then for a long period of time to elapse before that information is actually released. I believe—and it is not simply confined to this Government—that stating that information will soon be publicly available is being used as an excuse by the Government and it is not in line with the spirit of the legislation. There are some recommendations in the Law Commission’s report in relation to tightening up that provision. I do not believe that that issue will increase the trust and confidence of the public. The review of the Official Information Act is an important part of the ongoing work of the Ombudsmen. On this side of the House we strongly support the Office of the Ombudsmen in the work it is undertaking but we need to ensure that the legislation that that office administers is appropriate to modern times. I encourage Mr Power before he leaves us to give us some response—I do not mean today I tell Mr Power but before he leaves us generally—on what we can do to ensure that the Official Information Act meets the requirements of the modern age and that the Ombudsmen’s office is able to implement it. 
The other aspect of this motion that I want to refer to today is the work of the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General. We know that National has kept that office busy—we know that. We have had Pansy Wong and her husband Sammy Wong; we have had Phil Heatley’s ministerial credit card; and we have had Bill English’s use of his ministerial home. The office has been kept busy. It is a good thing to be able to say today the National Government is contributing to economic growth in this country. The Auditor-General’s office needs a bit more money because National has been keeping it so busy. The Auditor-General’s office has a number of other important inquiries that it would be nice to see it make progress on. The office recently reported on after-hours medical treatment in New Zealand which is a very important issue. Within that report the office made note of the fact that the accessibility and affordability of after-hours medical treatment are major issues in New Zealand and they are not getting better under this Government. 
Other reports are coming to us in 2011-12 from the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General. There is one on public-private partnerships 
and the risks for New Zealand’s public sector. That will be interesting. The main risk of public-private partnerships for New Zealand comes from the National Government wanting to get in and open up schools and the health system to the private sector— 
Phil Twyford 
: And prisons. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —and prisons—and privatise core Government responsibilities. I look forward to the report of the Auditor-General on the risks of privatisation to New Zealand because we know there are many risks particularly under a National Government that is determined to privatise within education health and the correctional system. We also have a follow-up on ONTRACK’s maintenance. That is important because we need to look back to when National privatised our rail system and show how poor the infrastructure became and how when the rail system was bought back enormous amounts of money had to be invested because the privatisation of that core Government asset did not work. 
I congratulate the work of the Officers of Parliament. They do an excellent job for us. We need to ensure that they are able to keep up their work keep up with modern technology and keep up with the devious actions of the National Government. 
Motion agreed to and Address agreed to.