Peters WinstonRt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): New Zealand First wishes to congratulate Leo Donnelly on his temporary appointment as an Ombudsman for 1 year given the early departure of Professor Ron Paterson.This party supports the Office of the Ombudsmen as a bulwark against big government and none are bigger than this National Government which is increasingly secretive and devious. With 10 outstanding complaints still with the Ombudsmen—one dating back to May 2014—there are several examples showing how a casual corruption is creeping in under this Government. Since the arrival of the Hon Judith Collins the statutory duty of the police to answer Official Information Act requests which end up going to the Ombudsmen has seriously been ignored. When the police do not uphold the law that is a concern. When that corresponds with a certain Minister's appointment it is a cause for serious alarm. This creeps into how questions of officialdom are being answered or rather not answered.Take Capital and Coast District Health Board. A very senior manager has told staff to give any number in an answer from a mistaken belief that they do not have to provide information because no one would be any the wiser—I repeat they do not provide information because no one will be any the wiser. We have a witness to the Ministry of Social Development staffers openly belittling the Official Information Act and the Social Services Committee in this Parliament. These attitudes do not come from the bottom up. They come from the top down. That is why the Ombudsmen need more resources to tackle some in officialdom who view the public and this Parliament with contempt—the same contempt that saw the UK Brexit referendum showing that the public in Western society is no longer prepared to take that any more.Take the appointment of JacksonStone and Partners to recruit the new Controller and Auditor-General which could in circumstances be questioning through the Ombudsman. We would like to ask why but we cannot because that is beyond the purview of the Ombudsman. JacksonStone and Partners stand to make $99000 in commission for this one appointment assuming that it is charging at the low end of its 18 to 23 percent commission scale since the State Services Commission says that that role had a salary of $550000 in 2014. We would rather see Parliamentary Service do some of these recruitments with the $99000 commission put towards bolstering the Office of the Ombudsmen or keeping the gallery and Chamber team who have been serving this place for a long time and whom some of us as MPs on this side of the House anyway seriously appreciate. We do not want them to lose their jobs while we have a whole lot of people gorging themselves on the taxpayers' funds. We have tried to get questions answered on how much these recruitment consultants make and we have been denied but the sunlight of transparency will win out.New Zealand First is sick of troughers plutocrats and highly paid consultants creaming it. Millions and millions and millions of dollars tens of millions of dollars—we cannot get to the bottom of it. We cannot find out how much they are being paid. They are creaming it while the quality and standards of the Public Service continue to slide. Our message to the Public Service out there is that at least one party is on your side and you know who it is: New Zealand First.Motion agreed to.