Prasad Rajen: Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Prasad Rajen: Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5424. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on a bill from the Hon Shane Jones. The Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill is about an organisation that probably is one of the most respected organisations in the State system in New Zealand so I want to acknowledge the work of the Ombudsmen all of them and their staff. I have been involved with them I have seen them operate from the many different positions I have held and I certainly want to acknowledge their diligence and the timeliness of the work they do. It is one of the most trusted organisations and certainly one whose assistance is often called for when a citizen is at the end of their tether whoever that citizen may be. So I want to acknowledge that. 
The second point I want to make is that really there is a wonderful elegance in the primary proposal in this bill. It actually will force a discipline amongst Government departments particularly those against whom complaints are made regularly. 
Denis O’Rourke 
: And councils. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Indeed—I agree with the member. I must admit that I said to Mr Jones that I had never thought of this but it does actually require all Government departments if this bill passes to not only internalise their discipline about timely response but also not subject themselves to complaints that can be upheld. There are many many examples of that. Because there is the ability in Government departments with all of the might of these huge departments and all of the resources they produce to prevaricate to take their time and to really disable citizens from accessing their primary right to information citizens need redress from what is the ultimate public servant which is the Ombudsman. That is what the Ombudsman is—the ultimate public servant; a servant of the public. They have internalised that. 
 So here what this bill is saying is that if a complaint is made against you and charges are involved—and of course the bill also says the Office of the Ombudsmen will set guidelines as to how this is to operate—then be warned that the costs incurred will fall on you. They will fall on the department; never on you Mr Speaker. I would never impugn you like that at all. But that will breed a discipline. 
I would have expected members opposite to understand this because in all of the social development social welfare and benefit reform work that they have been doing they have wanted to put incentives in. They are actually disincentives but you know they have put in the ability to punish those who do not carry on. But why is it that members opposite have not applied their minds to the elegant simplicity of this bill— 
Hon Shane Jones 
: Elegance. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Absolutely. It does do that. At the same time I say to the member from the north it actually also addresses a problem. Remember the Office of the Ombudsmen is an Officer of Parliament. This is one of the officers of this place we are talking about. That office often has had to come to Parliament cap in hand asking for small amounts of money to get its work on its complaints done and it has done that quite regularly. So it does address that problem. It addresses the issue of breeding discipline amongst Government departments. So it ticks off both those things. 
Finally what it does is it actually enables—and there is a list of complaints one could go through and examples of misuse often by Ministers and Government departments etc. where they prevaricate. A piece of information is asked for and it is not provided and the spin machine actually works overtime. Of course this Government uses that strategy a lot. Maybe that is why it is so touchy about this particular issue. 
So it is a good bill. It is an elegant bill. It addresses a number of questions and I commend it to the House. Thank you.