O'Rourke Denis: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-GeneralYear 2016/17Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-GeneralYear 2016/17[Sitting date: 07 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10326. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First is happy to support the motion in respect of the appropriations for Vote Audit Vote Ombudsmen and Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. I want to begin by making just a couple of comments about the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General.Firstly the recommended increase of $200000 seems to us to be well justified having regard to the $174000 deficit expected in the 2015-16 year and the need for a bit of a buffer in addition to that. We think that is fine. This is a very important office with very important functions especially for Parliament itself and for the general public to make sure that those auditing functions that it has proceed and are well resourced. Secondly I note that the Auditor-General has been supporting the secretariat of the South Pacific Association of Supreme Audit Institutions—a very long and impressive name—for the past 3 years and that an additional appropriation of $230000 is recommended for that. We think that is also a very important and very worthwhile function and we are happy to support that additional appropriation as well.But I particularly wanted to move on to the matter of the Office of the Ombudsman. I agree with many other speakers who have pointed out that for this extremely important public service it is absolutely clear that in recent years there has been a lack of capacity driven by the lack of resources leading to a backlog which has led to public dissatisfaction with the Office of the Ombudsman. That has to stop. It must be properly resourced so that public confidence is restored and so that the office can in fact carry out the functions it is established to do.Like many MPs in the House I have recently met with the new Chief Ombudsman and I have been very impressed by his determination to get rid of that longstanding backlog within a very reasonable period of time. But of course that office can do that only if it has adequate resources for the job. I think that the new Chief Ombudsman has got a good strategy a lot of energy and a great deal of capability. As long as he gets the resources he will do what he is setting out to do: to clear the backlog and to offer New Zealanders a very efficient ombudsman service because people do have a great deal of respect for that office and use it frequently.Unfortunately one of the things that I would say is a problem in New Zealand at the current time is the issue about official information. Too many Government agencies make it too hard to get official information and too many local Government organisations do just the same. As Eugenie Sage said some of them use charging techniques to try to discourage people from applying for information. We like the increased allocation for the Ombudsman; we think it is well justified and we will be supporting it.Finally I can make similar comments for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. I agree with Gerry Brownlee that this office has performed extraordinarily well in recent times. It has shown its worth; it has shown to the public and to this Parliament that it can do a very good job in making us aware of the environmental issues that face the country. Of course in recent times the Environmental Reporting Act has given that office much greater responsibilities and that requires resources and that requires this appropriation.The parliamentary commissioner’s office has already done the first of its twice-yearly reports. It completed the first one on the air domain and it is now working on a second synthesis report. It is now possible for that office to tell us what all of that is going to cost and what the increased appropriation needs to be. It is $250000 and frankly I am surprised that it is that small. I am surprised that the office can actually achieve all of those functions and do that additional work for such a modest sum.So New Zealand First is very happy indeed to support that additional appropriation and indeed all of the additional appropriations that are set out in this motion—we will be voting for it.