Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): The National Party is taking this bill very seriously because when Parliament is asked to set aside the statutory requirements for an Officer of Parliament it is a serious matter. While the Government has repeatedly in third reading speeches—from particularly the Minister responsible—used the shield of COVID-19 as an all-cover expression for almost anything they do and in this case this setting aside of a statutory deadline the reality is that we have not had widespread lockdown in the last 12 months and we have also not had the sort of indication from the Auditor-General's office that there was a problem with the process. For the Minister to come into the House yesterday put us into urgency then come through the committee stage and then in his third reading speech continue to say Nothing to see here—move on." is completely wrong. Parliament is being asked to excuse an Officer of Parliament for their inability to meet their statutory requirements.Now if there was any other Government agency where there was this sort of failure there would be some very serious questions being asked about the management of the organisation. That has been totally skirted over here with the Minister of Finance simply saying "It'll be all OK. Most of it will get done on time. They just need a bit of an extension." Well the question is: where has the problem been caused? Why is the Audit Office losing staff at the rate that they are? Why is it in these supposedly uncertain times that this is an office that has lost 41 people or around about—what's that—just over 20 percent of their staff in the last 12 months? Why is it that they've only been able to replace half of them and they are now some 27 staff members down? Those are the sorts of questions that should have been teased out in a select committee process. Having the Minister simply listening to the Auditor-General and saying "Yes you're quite right. We'll just ram it through Parliament." and then today reading out a letter written to the Opposition by the chief executive full of assumptions about what our position should be is simply ignoring the fact that it's his failure to meet his statutory guidelines that's the problem. There are members over there who've only been in Parliament literally for five minutes saying "Oh this doesn't matter. It's all OK it's only a short extension."—well it does matter. It does matter. Process matters because democracies stand on their ability to withstand the scrutiny of process and when a democracy decides "No we're just going to use the big 65 majority to do what we want." then that is very very concerning.The Minister said today that the appropriate place for some of these questions to be asked was the select committee: the Officers of Parliament Committee. Well I agree with him. So why wasn't this bill sent there even for a short time? What was the necessity to jackboot it through the House the way it has been over the last 24 hours? It's very hard to understand. In that committee there could have been a greater analysis of the problem that the auditor appears to have in holding on to staff. There could have been a better understanding of the so-called and it's just been thrown up in this debate and I think it was just snatched out of the air—the international shortage of auditors. The international shortage of auditors. Then of course the comparator with Australia: well we're 200 short; Australia is 1000 short. Well Australia's population is about five times ours so that's proportionately exactly right but are they having to do the sort of things that we're talking about? The Minister sat there shaking his head. "Yes they are." he said. "Yes they are." We can't find it anywhere—not a mention of it anywhere. Not on the Australian parliamentary website not in any of their news stuff—nowhere. So there we have a Minister on the one hand saying the select committee is the place to ask these questions but on the other denying the opportunity for the select committee to in fact make those investigations. Here's a question for the Government members: there are eight members on that committee it's made up of all parties in the House—it's the Officers of Parliament Committee. Three of those members come from the National Party. The balance are from either parties that are loosely associated with the Opposition or Government-supporting parties so the Government has a majority. A simple question: if there were to be an inquiry put up would the Labour Government support that inquiry? Not a chance—not a chance. Why would they want to shoot themselves in the foot and effectively admit that they've failed in the process that we're dealing with here today?I heard the Green member Julie Anne Genter in a very uncharacteristically angry speech saying that we should all just kick this through once again because of COVID19. Well I have to say to her that COVID-19 will not continue to be the shield for all things bad for much longer. Madam Speaker it's a little off the point but one only has to look at the vaccination programme to see that New Zealand is now equal with India—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order!Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well I'm coming to the audit on it—I'm coming to the audit on it.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member will resume his seat. It is a little off the point so I would encourage and thank the member who is going to come back to the third reading of this bill.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Madam Speaker I'm not happy with that intervention because I was saying that one only has to look at that and its relationship to—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The member will not reflect on the Chair. I'm warning him not to do that again.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The Auditor-General should be having a close look at the health ministry and its handling for example of the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out. New Zealand is now on a par with India just a little bit below—or actually quite a bit below—Kazakhstan and well below Belize and a number of other countries that my colleagues will be releasing in the next few days to show the need for the auditor to be on the case. So why are we doing this? If it's all possible as the Minister has said to get most of it through on time where were the difficult ones? Why have we got a bill that actually gives him and his office the freedom over the next really about 15 or 16 months to take their time and decide which they will and which they won't and I've got to say the letter that was sent that had a so-called priority in it is not something that can be relied on because the letter as I said before was full of assumptions that were totally wrong.So I've also had people contact me in the last 24 hours saying "OK it's a shortage and the Opposition is saying more auditors should have come into the country. But we've been trying for weeks to get a place in MIQ." even though there are some 2000 beds apparently periodically available and that's a job for the auditor also. Why is that happening? Why is there no connect between the largely Government-owned airline that brings people into the country and the managed isolation and quarantine system? No one talks one to the other there is no central planning and they are the sorts of things an auditor should be doing. The idea that we're going to say "Well we're just going to give them a bit more time to come up with these things. Parliament's sort of slightly interested but we'll let it go for another couple of months." is in my view quite an abdication of the responsibilities that this Parliament has.Had it been a select committee process where there could have been a determination about the priorities that were needed in the auditor's office there may have been a different result for us. But as far as it goes it is the Government determining they don't want to have the scrutiny on them that they should have and allowing all of this to go through through this extra time period is a huge disrespect of this House."