Doocey MattMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): I rise to take my call in opposition to the Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill. I must disagree with the last speaker Clare Curran. I in no way found Paul Foster-Bell's contribution disturbing. I felt the contribution of giving us a background of the evolution of ombudsmen's offices through a range of countries was very enlightening. I think when you take a look at history it gives us great comfort as we step forward and think about new ways of working. So I would like to thank Mr Foster-Bell for that contribution and for his contribution tonight.There is a great game of rugby this weekend. The Hurricanes are playing the Crusaders and in any game of rugby players have got to be nimble and show dexterity. I do not know whether the Hon David Parker has ever been compared to a nimble rugby player before but I must say he was—Hon David Parker: I was one. I was one.MATT DOOCEY: Well there you go. He was one. So he was a nimble rugby player and I think that shows through. Did you notice how he was on his feet—how he was able to shift from one narrative to another? Let us be honest this bill has been in the ballot for about 5 years and it was probably put in there in the days when the Ombudsman's office was perceived as being underfunded. So cost recovery was about how we fund the Ombudsman's office. Well the perception of it is it sits on the ballot for 5 years and then it gets pulled and then he starts to do his research and he starts to think: Well actually when I see that the Ombudsman's office since 2012 has had a funding increase of 70 percent—Hon David Parker: Why did they need that? For non-compliance.MATT DOOCEY: —from $9 million to $12.5 million—[Interruption] I will give him this: he is a smart man so he has obviously thought to himself: "How do I reframe this bill? How do I get the narrative right? OK. All right let's pitch cost recovery as a financial punishment. Let's take that approach." But one of these things—and I must quote David Shearer whom I always felt was impressive on a members' night when he used to say: "This is typical of the Government; it's a policy solution waiting for the problem." And I think—in the words of David Shearer—that is exactly what this is. This is not about cost recovery in this sense. I mean let us look: if we are going to throw policy ideas around like this what are the unintended consequences?So if this is a financial punishment for an agency that is not complying does that mean an agency that is pretty well resourced can just pay its way out of not complying? Let us think this through. Why do we not think of other ways? In the end this is about the complaints process. We are hearing a lot about the Official Information Act and really probably this is fundamentally what it is about. But overall if you were to look at the metrics of the Ombudsman's office from 1 July 2016 70 percent of complaints were resolved in 3 months. I would have thought that was pretty good. Currently the rate is that 90 percent of complaints are resolved in 3 months. We are working towards 2020—by 2020 there will be no complaints lasting longer than 12 months.There will be plenty of people in this House who have managed complaints processes. And when you look at that time is not necessarily the definitive factor. We all know that in a complaints process there is the variable of complexity. So sometimes taking time is not a problem. Taking time is the ability of the person to investigate it to its fullest and come out with a finding. It is not only about the finding and the investigation; it is also the learning—the learning and understanding. A good complaints process should have a good feedback loop on how that learning and knowledge will then go back into the institution to improve it.So I think we need to look at a range of issues but unfortunately this bill will not get to select committee. There is some thought of putting a bill through to the select committee stage to get it kicked around a bit and to see where it will end up but fundamentally I think this bill is flawed and that is why I oppose it. Thank you."