Robertson Grant: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-General 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-General 
[Sitting date: 05 April 2012. Volume:679;Page:1746. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I do want to begin by agreeing with those last comments from the Leader of the House about the importance of the role of the Offices of Parliament that we have. The Officers of Parliament Committee has looked at the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment the Office of the Auditor-General and the Office of the Ombudsmen. These are very important offices. I might say the Auditor-General is going to be busy I think and certainly the extra resources being provided will be very important as the Auditor-General embarks on getting to the bottom of the ACC saga and mess which has been created by a whirlwind of National Party figures coming together in what can be described only as a saga and a mess. I have heard it called a schemozzle; there are probably other words as well. The Auditor-General will be needing every last piece of the resources that are being provided under this motion to be able to get to the bottom of that particular saga. 
In fact I wonder whether the Auditor-General will be able to get to the bottom of this saga because I suspect it will be very difficult to get into the minds of the Ministers who were involved in this of the senior National Party figures such as Michelle Boag and of the members of the board with National Party connections. This is a saga—a tawdry saga—that the Auditor-General now has to find her way through. I think she will find it difficult. There are four other inquiries under way. I am not sure even they will be able to get to the bottom of this mess particularly the role of Ministers the conduct of Ministers in this situation and the links to the National Party. But I wish the Auditor-General well in her inquiry. We on this side of the House hope that we can shed some light on some important issues of the conduct of an agency—ACC—that we regard very fondly. It is a very important part of our health and social welfare systems and the fact that it is being dragged through the mud by the involvement of these National Party figures in this saga is most unfortunate. I do hope that the Auditor-General will be able to get to the bottom of some of that. 
 The other thing I want to say before I get on to the Office of the Ombudsmen is just to congratulate the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. I believe that her work has been of an excellent quality in recent times. Most recently today in the Local Government and Environment Committee we heard from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment about her report on water quality or the science of water quality in New Zealand. This is a critical contribution to the debate on those issues and there are other reports that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is about to undertake; one is into the issues of fracking which I know other members in the House will certainly speak about in times to come. We welcome the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment undertaking that inquiry. There certainly are serious concerns in the community that will be dealt with by that inquiry. 
I think what we are seeing there is that as the public of New Zealand have an increasing awareness of the importance of the environment to our future in New Zealand and of the importance of the environment to our economy there will be more work for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. And I hope there is because she brings an independent voice to those very important issues. I hope that the Government continues to support her work encourage that work and make sure that it is part of the decision-making process of the Government. I certainly believe that the current report on water will be a significant contribution. 
I want to devote the majority of my comments however to the Office of the Ombudsmen. I want to say at the outset that it is good that the Officers of Parliament Committee has recommended a funding increase for the Office of the Ombudsmen. The funding increase of $300000 is welcome and I do think we need to have that on the record of the House as an important contribution to addressing some of the issues that the Office of the Ombudsmen is facing. But I think we need to reflect on the position that the Office of the Ombudsmen finds itself in now receiving that $300000 because in fact when the Chief Ombudsman went to the Government Administration Committee she did say that she would need about $1 million extra in order to meet the operating costs of the office and to employ two more investigators who are desperately needed to clear the backlog in the Office of the Ombudsmen. So although $300000 is a welcome addition in funding it is quite clear to me that the Office of the Ombudsmen is now in a situation where it has been grossly neglected I believe. 
I respect what the Leader of the House said about the independent nature of the way that these bodies are funded through the Officers of Parliament Committee but we have to acknowledge that that is in the overall context of the Government’s financial plan—for want of a better word—for the country. I know that the Leader of the House mentioned when he spoke just before that there is advice from Treasury as part of this process. Quite clearly the fact that the Government is squeezing the public sector finances and is making cuts in the back room the front office and anywhere you like has an effect on the amount of money that is available to the Officers of Parliament Committee to fund these kinds of agencies. So I understand the argument of independence but it is in the context of a Government that is starving the public sector of funds. It has acknowledged that it is not just about the back room—whatever that means; the Government does not have a definition of that. This week we heard from the Minister of Finance that front-line services are in the gun as well. Front-line services are now what are being attacked and New Zealanders are starting to notice that. The Office of the Ombudsmen sits in that context because although the Officers of Parliament Committee can find some additional funding it is operating in an environment where it does not get close to the million dollars that Beverley Wakem said she needed to run her office properly. 
 There is not much that is more important in our democratic structure than the Office of the Ombudsmen. It is the office that ensures that Government departments and agencies are accountable and that they are transparent. The Office of the Ombudsmen does not just look at Official Information Act requests. The office looks at the behaviour of departments particularly in the correctional space which is a very important area. Many New Zealanders will remember ombudsmen’s inquiries into things like the incredibly unfortunate death of Liam Ashley while in the custody of the Department of Corrections. There have been a number of examples of this and to see that office describing itself—the Chief Ombudsman describing the office itself—as being in crisis in front of a select committee really does call into question our collective commitment to having this agency do the work it needs to do. 
New Zealanders should be incredibly proud of the fact that we rank so highly in the Transparency International rankings. It is something that is great about our country but we run the risk when institutions like the Office of the Ombudsmen say that they are in crisis and unable to process the requests in front of them that we will lose that kind of ranking. It is important for me to put on the record of this House that the New Zealanders whom I talk to want to see New Zealand keep that transparency ranking want to see accountable institutions of Government and will be very concerned to know that the Chief Ombudsman feels that her office has been in crisis. As the Chief Ombudsman herself said to the Government Administration Committee justice delayed is justice denied and people are already distressed when they approach the office. That is what she said herself and I can only endorse that comment. If people are waiting years in some cases for their complaints to be dealt with by the Office of the Ombudsmen we have a serious problem and it is a problem that this Parliament needs to take more responsibility for over the coming years acknowledging as I do the increased funding that has come forward from the Officers of Parliament Committee. 
When the Chief Ombudsman arrived at the Government Administration Committee she spoke about the fact that the office would not meet its targets this year. This was due to a lack of resources. Cases were becoming increasingly complex and requiring longer investigation. The budget for the office had been established on the basis of a workload of 800 to 1000 cases. At the moment there are 1854— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: How many? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —1854 live cases in the office. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: That’s more than twice what the budget is for. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: That was previously and there is now some increase but it still will not meet that caseload. In fact when the Chief Ombudsman went to the committee 300 cases were unallocated. That is 300 cases that have not even begun to be dealt with. This is not acceptable in an agency— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: That’s within the 1854? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: That is within the 1854 yes and that is unacceptable. 
One other point that the Chief Ombudsman made and that I do want to mention before my time runs out was about staff well-being and I acknowledge that some of the $300000 will go towards that. To hear the Chief Ombudsman talk about the fact that the office is worried about staff sickness high rates of serious illness and the stress placed on staff—it is extremely worrying that that situation had been created. We need to look after people who are working in the Public Service not put them under so much stress that they are unable to do their work. The Chief Ombudsman also recognised that the Government’s public sector reform programme—its cutting of funding to the public sector—will actually increase the amount of work that will come to the office. 
So although the additional funding is welcome there are still too many unallocated cases and there is more work coming down the pipeline from both public sector changes and the outcomes of the Canterbury earthquake which I think will have a significant impact on the work of the Office of the Ombudsmen. That means this office will no doubt be back next year seeking more funding and we need to take that seriously. I respect the constraints that the Government is working under but it is clear to me that the fiscal squeeze from the Government has had an impact on the amount of resourcing available to the Office of the Ombudsmen. That office is too important for our transparency for the accountability of Government agencies and for our democracy as a whole for us to see it starved of funding. We need to support it as a Parliament. I hope in the future we will discuss in more detail how we can get the resources to the office that it needs.