Locke Keith: Offices of Parliament—Address to Governor-General 
Locke Keith: Offices of Parliament—Address to Governor-General 
[Volume:608;Page:5126] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I rise as a Green member of the Officers of Parliament Committee to support this motion. I have been very pleasantly surprised at how well the Officers of Parliament system works and how accountable the officers are. In terms of the budget provided by this Parliament there has been a very cooperative relationship between the three Officers of Parliament and the committee in achieving common ground on what the increases in their expenditure should be. I think that the three Officers of Parliament are all doing a good job. The last speaker indicated how they were willing to challenge authority in the case he referred to to make sure that advice provided to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is not as a class deemed confidential and unavailable to the public and that each case under the Official Information Act has to be provided on a case by case basis. I think that that in itself shows the importance of the Ombudsmen in helping the public to get access to public information. 
I do support what Mr Lindsay Tisch said earlier about the load on the Ombudsmen the efficiency of the Office of the Ombudsmen and the annual report. He mentioned the large number of complaints and the time the office spends on them with a relatively small staff. I and the last speaker have been talking about the application of the Official Information Act and in the 2002 annual report it is stated that there were 863 Official Information Act investigations 18 percent of them from members of Parliament. Out of those 863 cases 66 percent were resolved in favour of the complainant or some assistance was given to the complainant to get the information he or she required. I think that that in itself shows two things. It shows the importance of the Office of the Ombudsmen in terms of making sure there is access to the Official Information Act and it also shows I think that Government departments perhaps need to be a little more open with the provisions of the Official Information Act. 
There was reference in Mr Tisch’s speech to the work of the Office of the Ombudsmen in relation to prisoners. I think it is important that prisoners have the ability to make appeals to the Office of the Ombudsmen. It is difficult in a prison environment if things go wrong or if there is some mistreatment or injustice for prisoners to get proper redress. I think that the Office of the Ombudsmen is very valuable there and it has performed good work. The ombudsmen now cover all the local government agencies as well and I think that the ability of the ombudsmen to delve into those issues is ensuring greater transparency for local government. In the report the Ombudsman does raise an issue now that they do cover education agencies of the State. There is the question that they do make accountable and transparent the operation of education agencies but there are private training establishments that are provided with similar Government funds for the work they do and that are not subject to the Ombudsman’s investigations and there is a certain inequality there. So all in all I think that the Office of the Ombudsmen has done very well. 
I also want to talk about the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment who has done excellent work. He has addressed many of the questions that we in this Parliament have to address and he provides information advice and analysis for our own work. Just today we have been talking about the electricity problems in this country. It is interesting to look at the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s annual report and see that the office is developing an electricity audit framework. It is trying to make sure that electricity generation and provision to the population is done in an environmentally sustainable manner. In the last annual report there is a sentence that is quite relevant. It states: “In the electricity sector where RMA resource consent processes focus on managing effects on the local environment” less account is taken of “environmental effects at a national or international level. This has the potential to lead to more thermal electricity generation being established rather than renewable energy sources such as hydro or wind.” I think that is very relevant in the light of our international commitment that we are developing to the Kyoto Protocol and the crisis we are in at the present time. We need much more national planning in terms of demand management and extra generating capacity and making sure as the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment does project in its annual report that it should be more in the direction of renewable energy such as hydro or wind. 
If members read the annual report they will see that there is a section on public transport. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment led an 18-person study tour to the Brazilian town of Curitiba which has a model transport system. It has been on television in New Zealand. Around the world people are looking to Curitiba and that 18-person study tour has had huge flow-on effects. I know that in Auckland recently a seminar was initiated by some of the councillors who went on that study tour with the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. The ripple effects of that study tour are going out throughout the community. The report talks about the whole question of what measures we need to develop in order to get a balanced transport system—a balance between road and different alternatives to roads—and the importance the Parliamentary Commissioner says of adequately valuing the space requirements for different modes of transport adequately valuing pedestrian space as against parking spaces not just giving priority to parking spaces and how to value public transport corridors which I think is very important. I come from Auckland and I think the valuation that the citizens are now putting on the bus lanes is increasing month by month. People understand the importance of that space being given to buses even if it does take a lane off the car traffic. It has increased public transport usage dramatically and made transport more efficient. 
The parliamentary commissioner also produced a very important document last year:  
Creating our future: Sustainable development for New Zealand 
. It has important recommendations and some criticisms really that Governments to date have not really developed the sorts of approaches that are required. It talks about the need for much more long-term planning to protect our environment. The recommendations in this major document state that the Minister of Local Government in consultation with Local Government New Zealand should develop guidelines for local authorities on preparing long-term community plans dealing with environmental economic social and cultural sustainability consistent with the principles of Agenda 21 the Rio declaration. It proposes that the Prime Minister establish an advisory body responsible for overseeing and coordinating the implementation of the Government’s proposed New Zealand strategy on sustainable development. It goes on to explain some of the things that such a strategy should develop. There is a lack—it is pointed out by the parliamentary commissioner—of real national planning because environmental planning cannot be done just on a local level. It has to be done by the Government through this strategy through the harnessing of communities across the country and through the establishment of such an advisory body. 
I think that all three Officers of Parliament have done a good job. The Audit Office is doing a good job of course. I see in its work plan this year that it is doing a study of overseas development assistance. Auditing that will be very valuable. It is doing a study of private-public partnerships to see whether there is really much of an advantage to New Zealanders in going down that track. It is all very valuable work.