SpeechHon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. It's a great pleasure to rise and speak as one of the Government speakers on the Parliamentary Agencies Delegations Legislation Bill. Before I deal with the content of the bill can I first congratulate you on your ascendancy to the role of Assistant Speaker. It has been my pleasure in the nearly 11 years that I've been a member of this House to work alongside you in a variety of roles. I anticipate a lot of fun working alongside you as the Assistant Speaker of the House.This bill as the Leader of the House said is a short and reasonably technical bill that may not set the public of New Zealand alight with interest but is an important change to the way this House operates and the way the support functions of this House operate. Therefore it is important to the functioning of our democracy. It does some simple things which will better support the Parliament and our ability to deliver on the responsibilities that the people of New Zealand grant to us as members of Parliament. It is an omnibus bill because it amends two Acts the Clerk of the House of Representatives Act 1988 and the Parliamentary Service Act 2000.Essentially what each of those two parts do is provide the ability for the Clerk of the House of Representatives and for the General Manager of the Parliamentary Service to delegate any of the functions or powers of their office to a person from the other agency. The legislation is designed to support the desire of each of those two offices to work more closely together in delivering the functions that we need as members of Parliament and that this House needs to be able to operate effectively.The two agencies—the Office of the Clerk and Parliamentary Service—wish to implement a closer working relationship to ensure that the functions and services performed by each agency are aligned as closely as possible and that duplication is minimised. The agencies wish to be able to share a number of services. As the Leader of the House mentioned one of the services which it has been recommended the two offices share is a joint human resources function. This is a recommendation that came out of the Francis review—obviously an important piece of work that every member of this House takes seriously and which needs to be considered in fullness and the recommendations of which need to be considered. This is a good opportunity for Parliament and for the Office of the Clerk and for the Parliamentary Service to be able to implement one of those key recommendations from that review.Additionally the Office of the Clerk and the Parliamentary Service have already set up a single parliamentary engagement team to manage education public engagement and inter-parliamentary relations: things like school visits—a very important part of our democratic system making sure that young New Zealanders get an opportunity to learn about and interact with our Parliament—as well as communications and website management. That team has staff from both organisations. However at present the manager who is an employee of the Office of the Clerk has to operate under a secondment to the Parliamentary Service so that she can exercise personnel and financial delegations for those in her team who are employed by the Parliamentary Service. It would be preferable of course for her to hold delegations from the Clerk and from the general manager.Working closely together of course is not the same as amalgamating the two organisations. The independence of the Office of the Clerk would be threatened by amalgamation and must continue to be protected. So this legislation looks to strike a balance that secures the independence of the Clerk and of the Parliamentary Service whilst allowing the two organisations to function in a much more streamlined and compatible fashion.I want to reiterate the point made by the Leader of the House that it is important that we maintain the independence from Government of these two organisations. It was an important split to make back in the 1980s to disaggregate the functions of Parliament from those of the Government so that Parliament can be a genuinely independent voice and have the opportunity to properly scrutinise the functions of the executive. This legislation continues to uphold that.It's a good piece of legislation a straightforward piece of legislation. I commend it to the House.