Copeland Gordon: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Copeland Gordon: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 14 December 2004. Volume:622;Page:17843. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the second reading of the Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill. It is a long time since February 2004 when this bill received its first reading. Also it is now a few months since the Finance and Expenditure Committee of which I am deputy chair reported the bill back to the House. At 500 pages this is a pretty massive bill and it introduces major changes to the way that the Crown accounts record the public finances of New Zealand. Before I proceed into some of the nitty-gritty provisions of the bill I would like to mention the use of the word “Crown” in a New Zealand context. When I was growing up those accounts were known as the “public accounts” or the “Government accounts”. I think the adoption of the Crown terminology is a step backwards. 
To most Kiwis—and that includes Maori Kiwis—the Crown terminology conjures up images of the Queen or the Governor-General. But in truth the accounts referred to in this bill belong not to the Queen or the Government but rather to the people of New Zealand. They represent and record for example assets purchased with funds taken in the form of taxes from the people of New Zealand borrowings and other liabilities that are incurred for and on behalf of the people of New Zealand and expenditure that is funded from taxes duties and levies compulsorily imposed on the people of New Zealand. The Government should always remember that no money it spends has not first been collected from the people. 
Maybe in the long run we should look at ditching the references to Crown accounts Crown agencies and Crown entities etc. I think it would be good if terminology was eventually adopted that more strongly corresponded to the reality that those entities and agencies and their accounts belong to the people and are there to serve them. Then we may again have—who knows—civil servants and put more emphasis on the centrality and importance of civil society in New Zealand. However that debate is for another day. Perhaps it could be taken up by the constitutional inquiry that will be launched by Parliament during this week of urgency. 
As a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee I acknowledge the centrality of the input we received from the Clerk of the House Dave McGee QC and the way that he led us through the various constitutional arrangements that lie at the heart of the public finance accounts and therefore of this bill. Without Dave McGee I am not sure quite where this bill would have ended up. He brought us back to emphasising that in matters relating to public finance the centrality of Parliament must remain all-important. It is in Parliament that the people of New Zealand place their trust. It is a trust that could be likened I guess to trusteeship and it is also a privilege to make huge decisions involving literally billions of dollars for and on behalf of the people of this country—for their welfare. Parliamentarians are the only elected people in New Zealand. We must never surrender the sovereignty that belongs to the elected assembly of New Zealand to unelected and sometimes faceless bureaucrats. 
In the first draft of this bill there was definitely a slant in that direction. We needed the advice of the Clerk of the House in order to put the right balance back. I guess that just illustrates how relatively easy it would be for us to kid ourselves—particularly probably the executive members of any Government—that somehow we are the people who really constitute the sovereignty of this country together with our army of civil servants and other paid employees. But we need to continue to clearly express the fact that the people of New Zealand are sovereign in this country and that we in Parliament are in a very real sense here to serve them and their interests. 
Another very interesting thing happened in the course of our extensive consideration of this enormous bill. We had for example some submissions that put before us a conspiracy theory. That is quite unusual—I think it is the first time since I have been in Parliament that people have come to the select committee and asked us not to pass a bill because it was really a conspiracy to usher in a one-world Government. From the people who made the submissions to us we almost got a sense that Armageddon was right behind us—that we would have a one-world Government tomorrow and the end of the world the next day with the Antichrist somewhere in the distance. They were actually quite well-qualified people but the bottom line is that their criticism was really alarmist and ill-informed. They could be excused I guess for drawing some of those rather fanciful theories together by the sheer complexity of this bill. I have to admit that when one significant piece of legislation is being amended by another then in relation to technical areas such as public finance and State sector management it really takes something of a wet towel to get one’s mind around some of the amendments and the way they fit into the existing legislation. 
However the central goal of this bill—and I think we have got pretty near to it—is basically to ensure that the public accounts of New Zealand—the various statements made to introduce fiscal policy through the Budget Policy Statement and so forth and through the Fiscal Responsibility Act—are kept according to standards that represent best international practice. That I think has been the driving force behind the bill and the committee has got us as close to that as possible—certainly within the level of the competence not only of ourselves but also of the many people who worked tirelessly to give us advice in those areas. 
I also think that the changes to State sector management in the bill will be positive. I welcome the drive to put in place standardised procedures including ethical guidelines that will apply across the board to all State agencies entities and whatever other names we choose to give such bodies. We have all those categories of autonomous ones semi-autonomous ones independent ones and so forth. But whatever those agencies are called I think we need to ensure in the interests of the people of New Zealand that they all carry out their functions in accordance with high ethical standards and with the best interests of the people at heart. Really those are the important things about the bill. We have cleared up a number of grey areas and a number of situations where the existing legislation was unclear about lines of accountability and responsibility. 
In summary I signal that United Future is reasonably happy with the outcome on this bill and with the work of the select committee. We will therefore support the bill through the Committee stage and its third reading thereby assisting it to become the law of the country. It will then be up to the same civil servants that I mentioned earlier to put it into practice and that will be a great challenge to people in Treasury and in the State Services Commission in particular. I express my own satisfaction with the high quality of the people we have in those organisations.