Curran ClareCLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Well I have to say it has been quite disturbing to hear the member opposite me Paul Foster-Bell just get up and give a defence of the increasingly disturbing practices of the withholding of information which this Government has taken us down the road of and which is ultimately the complete opposite of transparency. It exposes what I consider to be a really disturbing factor—that the transparency index which is held up as being the great measure of New Zealand is actually very shallow and does not get under the surface of the real issues and the real practices where democracy is being undermined.I am hoping that all of you in the House have been listening to Radio New Zealand's 9th Floor series which are the interviews with previous Prime Ministers. I want to refer specifically to the interview with Geoffrey Palmer where not only did he say that Government is like theatre but he expressed huge concerns about what he described as the great failure of the democratic system in New Zealand. I think we need to pay attention to that and look at what are the measures the levers of democracy that we have and how well they are functioning and how they could be improved. This is a bill. It is a small bill. It is a small measure. But it is a bill that is intended to strengthen democracy not to undermine it. I am afraid that what the member has just done is give a defence of the undermining of democracy in our country.I also just want to touch on the important role of media as our fourth estate to hold the executive of our Government to account. Also I want to touch on the role of Opposition no matter who is on the Opposition benches in being able to access information from the executive to hold the executive Government to account. These are critical parts of democracy. We must be constantly scrutinising them and asking whether they are fit for purpose and whether they can be improved. This is a small measure in this bill that goes towards doing that.The Ombudsman has an extremely important role to play in our democracy. I note that the Chief Ombudsman—he is not so new now—Peter Boshier referenced in a recent speech a visit he had made to Vienna to a meeting of the International Ombudsmen's Institute where there are 90 ombudsmen's offices—and I am not going to list them—around the world. They describe their role as being to protect the people against violation of rights abuse of powers unfair decisions and maladministration … to improve public administration while making the government's actions more open and its administration more accountable to the public."Yet what we have here is an administration where there are nearly 2000 complaints that are the result of Government not making information available. There are complaints of which many are years old. I have four such complaints currently before the Ombudsman that go back to 2012 and I am just one person. All of the members of the Opposition parties would have complaints sitting with the Ombudsman. Almost every journalist in the country would have had problems getting information from the Government and will have complaints before the Ombudsman that go back years.I think that the member across there does not understand what this bill is about. It is not trying to address an underfunding issue; it is addressing an issue of providing an incentive to Government departments to do what they are supposed to do under the Act and to provide information. If they do not provide information they are fined and that matter goes before Parliament. That is accountability."