Dean JacquiHon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): It is a little rich to be subjected to the complete lack of values displayed by this Government. On the one hand they are talking about transparency—as if—and putting in another piece of legislation to support a neutral Public Service in the context of the ministerial sacking of the Hon Clare Curran whose actions not only caused Carol Hirschfeld to resign or lose her job—Hon Kris Faafoi: You've still got nine minutes to go.Hon JACQUI DEAN: —but also affected the employment of the Chief Technology Officer. Yes I have got nine minutes to go and I'll be fully using those thank you Kris Faafoi. I certainly will. I will be using those to remind that Government that their words may be lofty that Minister's words may be lofty but the actions of a former Minister a little bit further down the House were anything but. So to stand with the lofty words around a neutral Public Service while public servants were losing their jobs and appointment processes were being knowingly subverted rather gives the lie to that contention by that Minister.So so much for transparency—so much for neutrality. What this bill does do is it extends the reach of the State Services Commissioner—it's what it does. It extends the reach of the State Services Commissioner on signing off on chief executives' pay and conditions. The member who's just resumed his seat said it all. He said that they want to put a cap on chief executives' pay. Why? Don't we want the best people in New Zealand?Stuart Smith: We do.Hon JACQUI DEAN: My colleague says Yes we do." Well we do. But in the interests of New Zealand don't we want the best people to lead our public entities? Let's not forget that those chief executives often have a multimillion-dollar budget to manage a large organisation spreading the length and breadth of New Zealand to manage plus sometimes an overseas posting—that's not unusual—a very high level of public visibility and scrutiny and also a very high level often of parliamentary scrutiny and accountability. Don't we want the best people for that job? I am really pleased that a new clause was inserted into the bill at the select committee and I do have to credit Brett Hudson for the work that he did at the select committee in making sure that protections were put in so that any candidate putting their name forward for a public entity at least had the protections of some criteria. Otherwise who would put their name forward to be the chief executive? So the committee recommended inserting a new clause. It was clause 4 which would require the commissioner before they signed off on the appointment of a chief executive to have regard to a number of things.Obviously not every Crown entity is the same. There are five categories of Crown entity running from a large State-owned enterprise through to a board of trustees. One of the criteria was the legal commercial and operational context of the entity and that does recognise that not all entities are the same. It requires feedback from the board so the board would provide any information they considered would be useful in supporting their recommendation that the commissioner sign off on that nomination. So that information of course would include things like the suitability of the candidate the knowledge they have their skill base and how much experience they bring to the role. That is all good sense and we support that. The public nature of the nature of the entity of the role is also a consideration for the chief executive and that I think is a very important factor to be brought in when one considers members like Shane Jones who is very prone to opening his mouth and just letting words fall out and condemning willy-nilly scattergun anyone who he thinks will give him a better public profile. Public CEOs—their public visibility can be absolutely compromised by some loose-lipped MP looking for a headline. And as we know increasingly that is happening in New Zealand. That public nature of that role and the public nature of the scrutiny and criticism whether it's deserved or not of that role can be because of this clause inserted into legislation and should be acknowledged in the level of remuneration. Of course the market needs to be considered—what the remuneration market is at the time. It might be different in five years' time from what it is now; I'm sure it will be.What the Minister expects from that CEO in their letters of expectation and again here we have a Government on the one hand saying they want a robust Public Service and they want clarity and they want visibility—that was the word du jour from the Minister who's resumed his seat—but Megan Woods has got two public entities who have not yet received a letter of expectations. This is 11 months after—[Interruption]—yes and Ōtākaro is one of them.So what they are doing is they are endeavouring to meet the current Minister's expectations but without a clear steer from the new Minister what do they do? They fall back on the previous Minister's letter of expectations and they have failed in their statutory role. And yet the Government seem quite complacent about that. So what does that say about visibility and a neutral Public Service and a Government which strives towards integrity? So that's Clare Curran and Megan Woods who subverted that process knowingly. I do hope that with the passage of this bill those matters will be nailed down ever more firmly—not for the Public Service not for this side of the House but for the Government itself who has Ministers who seem only too willing to chart their own course through the requirements of their legislation.So yes we will support this but this is this Government's legislation and we would expect that their Ministers would adhere to those requirements—because who loses out of this? They seem to be sailing through these transgressions—well one of them hasn't; one of them has lost her job. But on the way through there has been damage to public servants and surely surely their needs should be considered.There is one other outstanding matter—I did ask the question in the committee stage but I did not get an answer from the Minister—and that is that the State Services Commissioner will be required to sign off not only on the appointment of a chief executive but the reappointment of a chief executive. Now the longest term a chief executive can have for their appointment is five years. So in five years' time—it is not clear in the bill—should a chief executive wish to be reappointed and should the board wish to reappoint that chief executive because they have done an outstanding job the bill does not make it clear and the Minister would not could not answer what the process would be for reappointment in terms of the State Services Commissioner having to sign off on this matter. I do think that an answer from the Minister on that very point would have been very useful.I just want to just finish my contribution by noting that a code of conduct has also been inserted into the bill and I would contend that that code of conduct should apply not only to chief executives but also to the behaviour of current Government Ministers."