Parker David: Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Parker David: Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 The member who has just resumed her seat Jacqui Dean said that she could not remember back to 2003. Sadly she cannot even remember back to last year because the perpetrator of the fraud at the Otago District Health Board was never the chief financial officer as she just told the House. He was the chief information officer. He ran the board’s computer system not its finance. 
Jacqui Dean 
: Oh! 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Jacqui Dean says that is a minor detail but that sort of detail is important. She fails to remember not just what happened in 2003 but also more recent events. She also omitted to tell the House that the Protected Disclosures Act which was passed by the Labour Government in 2000 conferred protection— 
Jacqui Dean 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member has pointed out that I made a mistake in my previous speech. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: What is the point of order? 
Jacqui Dean 
: The point of order is that I wish to correct what I said in my speech because I have obviously made a mistake. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Under which Standing Order is the point the member is seeking? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: The Standing Orders are very clear on this. If the member wants to make a correction it can be done at the end of the speech. She cannot interrupt it. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Sorry; I just did not pick up the point of order. Yes a point of misrepresentation should be made at the end of the speech. That is the convention. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. First of all there is no such thing as a point of misrepresentation and I do not think the member raised that. I think she wanted to make a correction which is something that should be done at the end of the speech. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: We are clear on that. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. The other point that Jacqui Dean failed to point out to those who are listening to the debate is that were it not for the legislation that the Labour Government passed in 2000 there would have been no right for the people employed by the Otago District Health Board to make protected disclosures. Throughout the period of the fraud by Mr Swann they had that right but sadly no employees availed themselves of it. 
We also heard from Jacqui Dean that she could not understand why the Labour Government having passed this good legislation in 2000 and having conducted a review of it in 2003 did not give more priority to this amending legislation. 
Jacqui Dean 
: Well obviously they didn’t. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: It is clear that we did not give more priority to this amending legislation because we had other more important priorities. We had more important priorities and I thought that I would run through some of them. During that period of course the Labour Government placed a greater priority on extending the generosity of the Working for Families tax package which extended generous tax relief—or more generous tax relief—to many many hundreds of thousands of families in New Zealand. That measure is worth an extra $80 to $100 per week for them and it lifted 130000 children out of poverty. The Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill is important. This Government would not have proceeded with it and the previous Government would not have introduced it were it not important. But it was not more important than the extension of tax relief that lifted 130000 children out of poverty through extensions to the Working for Families legislation. That is why we put that legislation ahead of this legislation. 
We also decided that KiwiSaver was more important than this legislation. KiwiSaver went some way to addressing the problem that New Zealand has with low levels of private savings and it did this by way of tax credits to the employee and tax credits to the employer. We knew as a Labour Government that that scheme was more important than the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill and that is why we gave that legislation priority. It is interesting that National thought on one level that KiwiSaver was more important than this bill but National’s response was to cut KiwiSaver instead of building on it. We know that all of the people in New Zealand who are in KiwiSaver and who have had a tax cut under National are worse off because the losses they suffer under the KiwiSaver cuts cost them more than the benefits they got under the tax package. 
What else did we think was more important than advancing the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill earlier? We cut the corporate tax rate from 33 percent to 30 percent and we put that ahead of proceeding with the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. I again suggest to the House that that was the appropriate priority. 
What else did we do? We thought that it was more important to progress legislation in the area of the sustainability issues facing the world than to progress amendments to the protected disclosures legislation. We proceeded through some very difficult and hard-fought legislation that was very important not only to New Zealand’s environment but also to the world environment. I refer to the pricing of greenhouse gas emissions through the emissions trading scheme which gives an incentive to business to reduce emissions rather than increase them. 
I do not resile from the fact that we gave all that legislation priority over this legislation. Indeed for the period that I was the Minister of State Services I was happy for those things to be given priority over and above this legislation. 
I am happy that the National Party in Opposition also recognised the wisdom of this legislation. Probably that was because the Government Administration Committee that considered it had those intellectual giants that the National Party was then more populated with including Brian Connell who was on the select committee making sure that this legislation was as good as it could be. He was most ably assisted by the other Einstein of the National Party Sandra Goudie. I am so pleased that through the good services of those members of the National Party we had support for this legislation and I thank them for it. Without it this legislation would perhaps not be back here. 
I return to the substance of this legislation. This bill improves the ability of those who suspect or allege wrongdoing to bring it to the notice of the other people in the Government who have the responsibility to sort it out. It has a history. Back in the 1990s Neil Pugmire lost his job as a consequence of making a disclosure of serious wrongdoing in his organisation. We thought that the injustice he suffered ought not to be visited upon other people. 
This bill improves the legislation in a number of ways as Mr Williamson and Grant Robertson have already summarised. It extends the role of the Office of the Ombudsmen so that the Ombudsmen can tell people how to go about this process without getting themselves into trouble. That is a very good thing. The bill makes the legislation more workable. It also—this is important—enables the Ombudsmen to take over inquires where they are being ignored by the responsible organisations or where organisations have deliberately on some occasions frustrated the purpose of the complaint by excluding an important part of the complaint from the inquiry that is being conducted. I hope that both of those powers will need to be used only rarely. 
I hope in most situations that a whistleblower having brought things to the attention of senior people in an organisation could rely upon that organisation to do the proper thing as Richard Thomson did at the Otago District Health Board when matters came to his attention. And I hope that when people in an organisation investigate it is not just the whistleblower but also those more senior people in the organisation who deal responsibly with the alleged wrongdoing who are protected and that they are not cut off at the knees in the way that Richard Thomson was by Tony Ryall. 
Jacqui Dean 
: Not true. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Again we have Jacqui Dean not remembering that it was a chief information officer rather than a chief financial officer. Not only is she acknowledging that she cannot remember things that have happened since 2003 but also she is now denying that Richard Thomson was sacrificed by Tony Ryall for political ends despite the fact that Richard Thomson could have done nothing more than he did because he knew nothing of the wrongdoing until it was brought to his attention. When it was brought to his attention it was he who dealt with it transparently who ensured that the offender was through the police brought to justice and who brought an end to that terrible financial fraud that was being perpetrated by Mr Michael Swann. For that Richard Thomson was thanked by being removed as chair of the district health board. That is hardly the way that one would encourage organisations to deal properly with wrongdoing when it comes to their attention. 
On behalf of the Labour Party I am happy to indicate that we will be supporting this legislation at its final vote.