Tisch Lindsay: Offices of Parliament—Address to Governor-General 
Tisch Lindsay: Offices of Parliament—Address to Governor-General 
[Volume:608;Page:5122] 
LINDSAY TISCH (NZ National—Piako) 
: 
 I have pleasure on behalf of National in supporting this motion. The funding for the offices of Parliament—that is the Office of the Ombudsmen the Auditor-General and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment—is determined by the Officers of Parliament Committee rather than by Cabinet. National is pleased to support the motion. 
There are however a number of issues that arose during our discussions on the Auditor-General’s report. I want to mention these briefly. The Audit Office has experienced since the last election increasing demands on its time. Parliamentary and community expectation of public sector performance and accountability is always there and is increasing. With the number of new members of Parliament there probably will be increased demand on the services of the Audit Office. 
At the same time with regard to local government the public expectation is also increasing and that has been evidenced in the increased number of complaints that the office has received over the last 12 months. There has been a real challenge which will face not only the Audit Office but also accountancy firms—that is the reputation the credibility of the accounting and auditing professions. This has come about through the demise of a number of overseas companies—in particular Enron. There are international events that may have implications for both the New Zealand profession and the Audit Office. Work will need to be done in this area and we understand that the report by the Auditor-General to the select committee was that the Accounting Standards Review Board has recommended the adoption of the international financial reporting standards by 2007 and this may pose issues requiring particular attention for the public sector in New Zealand. There are some risks involved with this and these are the challenges that the Audit Office will have to contend with. 
There has been increased demand for the services of the Audit Office and I want to refer to the number of taxpayers who are using those services and also parliamentarians. As I mentioned earlier with a changeover of Government with the new Parliament new MPs have come in and that is placing increasing demands. There are between 250 to 300 inquiries received each year. These are mainly on the performance audits of public entities. Additional funds have been provided. National supports the additional funding. That will allow the office to get through the studies that have been commissioned. 
There is the provision for non-contested audit services and also the provision of contested audit and assurance services. If we read through the report on these we see the Auditor-General has a statutory duty to conduct an audit of the financial statements of more than 3900 public entities. So it is a huge operation. Audits are undertaken either by Audit New Zealand or by the private sector. 
Just to finish on this section class 3 which is referred to comprises the audits of approximately 400 public entities and class 4 is the remaining 3500 entities. Two thousand five hundred of those are schools. The Audit Office goes through a very important process. The Audit Office undertakes a number of studies and they are listed in its very comprehensive plan. National has much pleasure in supporting Vote Auditor-General. 
In moving to Vote Ombudsmen we see a number of issues have been resolved. Once again we are happy to support this vote. The new remuneration rates for the Chief Ombudsman and the Ombudsman Mel Smith were advised by the Higher Salaries Commission. They became effective last year on 1 October 2002 so there is an increased cost to the Permanent Legislative Authority and an extra $40000 has been allocated for that purpose. One should be aware that the remuneration of the other Ombudsman Judge Anand Satyanand actually comes out of Vote Courts. The Office of the Ombudsmen is not required to fund that. 
There has also been an interesting dilemma that the Office of the Ombudsmen has had to face and that has been court action that has been taken against it. Another $100000 has been appropriated to meet legal fees. It is unusual that the Crown Law Office working on behalf of Work and Income has taken a case against the Office of the Ombudsmen. We have allowed for $100000 for legal fees. The office does not have any contingency to fund and defend legal proceedings. Therefore it is important that that is fully funded and that has been achieved. 
The office has also allowed for another small legal firm adjacent to its primary tenancies to merge. This property is on The Terrace and a merger has taken place with a little reallocation of funds. That is a move in the right direction and certainly we have supported it. About $36000 has gone into that area. 
There are a number of increasing demands on the Office of the Ombudsmen and the objectives that have been set out for the year 2003-04 are interesting. The caseload at the moment has been between 6000 and 6500 investigations each year. Approximately 5500 are complaints lodged under the Ombudsmen Act the Official Information Act the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and the Protected Disclosures Act. It is a huge operation with 6500 complaints and investigations undertaken. The existing profiles have to be maintained there is an average of nine visits per year to penal institutions and there are about 2000 new complaints from prison inmates during that period. 
There is a huge commitment there and that goes along with the tertiary institutions. There are 40 tertiary institutions and the ombudsmen make two visits per year to each of those institutions. The ombudsmen expect that there will be an increase in parliamentary requests during the next year resulting from political interest positioning for the next general election. They make the comment that as we build up to the next election there will be other requests that the Office of the Ombudsmen will have to handle and that is to be expected in the run-up to the 2005 election. 
National is very happy to support the role that the Office of the Ombudsmen plays and the motion that the Minister has put forward. Two other risks that the office will be confronted with are the increased workload coming from the education sector and the increased demands on the office’s time under the Accident Compensation Corporation. The office has identified the issues that it will need to address and the challenges it will face. We believe that the funding provided for the office in these appropriations will be sufficient and National has great pleasure in supporting the motion.