SpeechJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm stoked to get to talk about this in my last speech to this Parliament because I've completely geeked out on this through the entire process. Hon Grant Robertson: Such a nerd.JAN LOGIE: Thank you thank you. I'm going to take this moment. The rules of Parliament—it sounds like it's something abstract and in-house that's not relevant to the general public. But actually how we make laws how we hold and test the effectiveness of Government and how we enable the community to participate in our processes are central to a thriving democracy. We got to have weeks and weeks of very long—enjoyable actually—conversations about how we could make things better for the public and deliver what I think we all come into this place wanting to do and participate in. I do want to acknowledge the Speaker for chairing the Standing Orders Committee and all the colleagues around the table and the clerks for a huge amount of work as has already been noted.I'm going to start off by also acknowledging the submitters and talking to one of the points—several of the points that were raised that were not progressed through the process. One of them was not within the ambit of the committee and that was that we should be increasing the number of parliamentarians which came from Sir Geoffrey Palmer and another submitter. I want to start with that point because a lot of the discussion we had about increasing scrutiny was in an acknowledgment that we're not being very effective in doing that at the moment.Sir Geoffrey's point was that actually outside of the 62 Labour Party members of Parliament and the two Green Party Ministers we're left with only 56 MPs who have a distance from that legislation to really drive scrutiny. What we see in the behaviour mostly of Government members—and I've been here and seen both sides of Government—is that it's a different level of engagement from Government backbenchers in that process of scrutiny. So we're left with only 56 people and 261 I think pieces of legislation that came through this House in this term—and the interrogation of the many many many agencies and all of the Budget.People are stretched too thin to be able to do it effectively. That's an unpopular concept—I get it—but I also as I leave stand up here and say actually if we treasure our democracy and we want to make sure that we are doing the best possible job for the people of this country we need to ensure that people have the capacity to be able to do that job effectively. I agree with Sir Geoffrey Palmer that we need to look at the numbers of members of Parliament as a core part of that discussion. We are doing what we can around the edges through these discussions if we're not looking at that.It also goes to the point from a rare cross-party proposal that came in from the Hon Jacqui Dean and the Hon Jenny Salesa looking for more family-friendly hours in this Parliament in recognition that there is a problem around work-life balance for many people here and that actually the less we are able to be connected to our outside lives and our families the more detached we are and that that actually has an impact on the quality of our work in this place as well. We were not able to accommodate those because actually there is too much work to do; there was an absolute acknowledgment around that table that we do not have the capacity to be here less and people need to be in their communities. That was a trade-off around people wanting to be here for longer periods of time but fewer weeks; for those who had family back at home that was too much so that was seen as not being family friendly. When we don't have enough people to be doing the work and we're pressuring the work things just don't actually add up and I believe that we do need to look at that.Other points that were raised by people: broadcasting and hosting select committees on Parliament TV; for there to be bilingual proceedings and more New Zealand Sign Language interpretation; for there to be a contestable fund to support NGOs to be able to put in really considered submissions on bills when they don't have the resourcing at the moment to be able to do that; for there to be more use of citizens assemblies or digital engagement through the select committee process; to be able to release written submissions more quickly; and to have independent advisers to select committees as a normal part of the process recognising that departmental advisers are often very much invested in the legislation and are not able to have the intellectual or emotional distance to provide independent advice to the committees. But all of those things are not in our report because all of those things would require money and actually this Parliament is also at a point where we are seeing in several services around the place that the money is so stretched. We're not at a point to even be able to consider how we improve the democracy the functioning of the democracy and the people's ability to engage when it costs money.We are at a point where it is generally acknowledged and a huge amount of evidence backing it up that democracy around the world is almost on a point of crisis. We are seeing democracies undermined all over the place. We are seeing disinformation increase in our own communities at a higher rate than even in the US. In this moment in time it is the Green Party's view that we need to be actively doing more to resource our Parliament and strengthen our democracy. It is not enough to keep working around the edges as much as I am pleased to see these points of progress—and I will touch on those now.The scrutiny plans—I do want to speak specifically to having two weeks a year where the House will not sit and that members of Parliament will be engaged in scrutiny and that there will be threehour sessions for large or particularly important entities. The initial idea had been six hours and to be able to have themes and questioning and interrogation but three hours—at least it's a start to extend that and the idea is to have more people being able to follow through a whole series of questions rather than having to jump between one member and another member having one question and maybe one supplementary and never being able to actually properly dig in to any issues. So this is an attempt to shift that culture but it will require every party in this House actually engaging with the new MPs on that conversation about what is the role of parliamentarians in scrutiny and actively supporting and encouraging people to use their political time in that role.I genuinely believe that that is for the benefit of Parliament and our democracy but also Government because the truth is that people in the executive actually get the information that comes from their agencies—from the questions that they ask—and they are better off and more informed the more information that they get the more the advice from the officials are tested. That requires Opposition to be able to deliver.The one other point is that we will also be enabling select committees to release advice for the purpose of public feedback on summaries of submissions before reports are written to be able to test that advice which I think is also a very important thing. There is much much work that we could do and it is important work. Thank you.Motion agreed to.