Guy Nathan: Offices of Parliament—Address to Governor-General 
Guy Nathan: Offices of Parliament—Address to Governor-General 
[Volume:638;Page:8772] 
NATHAN GUY (National) 
: 
 In speaking to Government motion No. 1 I think this is an opportune time for me to acknowledge very briefly the Bolger conference held here on the weekend. The reason I do so is that Mr Dick Denton a resident and very long-standing citizen from the Horowhenua was down here on Saturday and he had a major heart complication. He was resuscitated by the security staff at Parliament and is now recovering well in Wellington Hospital. Mr Denton is a well-known JP who does a lot of court work in Levin. We were recently speaking about the senior citizens card and Mr Denton may qualify. I just wanted to put it on the record that Parliament wishes him all the best in his recovery. I also thank the security staff in Parliament for the very good work they did.  
This motion is all about the budgets of the Controller and Auditor-General the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and the Office of the Ombudsmen. Parliament has been seeking candidates for the new position of the third ombudsman and applications closed on 27 April. It is a very very important position in Parliament and we hope we have attracted some very good candidates who will be shortlisted by the Officers of Parliament Committee very soon.  
The Office of the Ombudsmen has come under a huge workload and it has taken a while for it to churn through a lot of its work. I think everyone out there listening would agree that ombudsmen play a very very important role in New Zealand and we need to ensure that we get the right candidate for the job in that office.  
With the whole debate that is raging at the moment about the environment and climate change the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is doing a very very good job as well. This position sits under the Officers of Parliament Committee. The central focus of this position is all around environmental sustainability. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment does not report to a Government Minister but reports to Parliament through the Speaker and also through the Officers of Parliament Committee. So these officers are separate from any political interference. The job of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is to hold the Government to account over its environmental policies and actions. This position was set up in 1986. The commissioner Dr Jan Wright has been appointed for a 5-year term and she is doing a very good job.  
The other important role we are speaking about today under debate on this motion is that of the Controller and Auditor-General. This position is also independent of the executive branch of the Government and it has very important roles around its statutory office. People who are listening would be all too aware that Mr Kevin Brady did a great job around some of the spending by the Labour Party through the last election and Labour has just repaid that $800000-odd of taxpayers’ money which was not well spent. The job of the Auditor-General is very important because once again he sits away from political interference. He does a whole lot of work around audits—the annual audits through the Public Audit Act 2001—and gives very good advice to MPs and to Parliament. He has a very good strong liaison role and he is seeking some more money to get the Audit Office up and running. National supports this motion.