Eagle PaulPAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. Keep the member from Mana under control please Madam Deputy Speaker.Matt King: This is going to be good.DEPUTY SPEAKER: And the same goes for that side.PAUL EAGLE: Keep the member for Northland under control too please. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. There're a lot of out of control people in the House this afternoon.Look it is a privilege to take a call on this and also to be part of the Governance and Administration Committee. I can't see anything wrong with the comments made by the chair of the committee Brett Hudson the harder working and did he say most competent or competent—look I won't get into it. It's about the only thing I agree with him on but nevertheless it's a competent committee—[Interruption] It's a competent select committee thank you the member for Ōhāriu.I was looking carefully at this bill that's been brought to the House by the Hon Chris Hipkins and I thought What's formulated this bill and why is it here?" We've heard the words "integrity" and "trust" mentioned in nearly every speech this afternoon and I think this just reinforces the notion that this is all about the integrity of our Public Service no matter what side of the House you're on. It's also talking about the powers or the lack of and the need for more powers for our State Services Commissioner and examples have been given there too. But most of all I think this is about transparency and accountability for every New Zealander so they can have that confidence and trust in our senior public servants.It puzzled me when I came in this afternoon and heard some members opposite going round and round and round the issue with lots of excuses. I thought "This astounds me." because they are saying that it's only got essentially conditional support to the first reading. Considering the issues that are detailed—and some of those issues talked about the fact that there are three Crown entities who ignored the commissioner's guidelines two implementing changes that even ignored what the Minister's advice was—even looking at the strategic context of this bill and just some of the actions taken by Crown entities one would have thought this was just an obvious bill to support.I want to remind members too that these are public organisations that use public money and are there for the public good so therefore as I've said our public have every expectation that the senior public servants and the appointment of them—chief executives—is undertaken in a transparent manner. That's key. It's key because these are some of our most highly paid people in our nation.And look I've been fortunate to have been part of local government and the Local Government Act specifies clearly the appointment of chief executives. In fact I was chair of the performance review committee for the local authority that I came from and it's a clear process. It's a five-year term; two years if the city or district council chooses to roll over the incumbent or a five-year reappointment should they choose to externally advertise the role. So it's very clear—the Act lays it out. It doesn't involve the State Services Commission—maybe some of the work through the Governance and Administration Committee could address this as part of a wider view.But what disturbed me in that process—and Jan Logie the Green member pointed it out—is that as part of that process no matter how thorough it was there was a point in time where you had an external agency come in and they told us about the market. And I pick up on what some of the Opposition members say that "Look we need to get the best person for the job." It's code for "we need to pay them as much as they want" and that's what this external agency said: "Here is the benchmark between local government and the private sector"—and boy was it high. What it needed was bold leadership from the entity that said "Actually if the CEO wants to stay in this organisation then the entity needs to say 'Well look this is what we're prepared to pay.' "I think this bill picks up on that. It's not the never-ending climb that goes higher and higher and higher where we just keep paying what external agencies say to us is what the private sector pays because this isn't the private sector and any one of our Crown entities should be able to distinguish itself and say "Well we're not a private company; we are a publicly owned company. We have reporting mechanisms etc. that define who we are."The most interesting bit is the CEO of the local authority. He took what he was given by the council. The council didn't fall over. Ratepayers didn't stop getting their services delivered and he's still on the same amount that he was three years before. My point is that when you have guidelines and you have a strong monitor of those guidelines the very fact that this notion that people will quit run away they're irreplaceable—it's wrong. And that's why I think what we've seen here today in the presentation of this first reading is so strong.I'm lucky enough to have sat on three council-controlled organisations—three boards: the stadium here; the venues company; and our cricket venue the Basin Reserve Trust Board. Three council-controlled organisations that are essentially Crown entities in local government - speak. And I'll tell you this—never a board chair walked back to its parent body with the recommendation of some outrageous salary because the elected membership body knew that when they went to ratepayers and said the little entity the council-controlled company entity is being paid $250000 $260000 $300000 when only years earlier that person was a council unit manager being paid $100000 and a Toyota Corolla to go with it there would be outrage from ratepayers.And that same outrage is bubbling underneath the surface here in Aotearoa where people are saying "We've had enough of this." And that's what's come through in speeches from my colleagues on this side of the House. That's why it's important something has to be done. It's been picked apart as if this is some teeny-weeny irrelevant matter that could have been looked at at any time during the 12 to 20 years that the Government will be in power but it's important we do it now. It's important we send the right signal and our members here talked about sending those signals around making sure as I said at the start that this is about trust and confidence.You'll see in the paper and it's been talked about too that this covers several entities. It also picks up our public health agencies too and those educational institutions that actually are already required to obtain the commissioner's advice. This is one of the small but powerful amendments that I think everyday New Zealanders will look back on and say "Thankfully someone had the nous to make a couple of minor amendments that have a couple of major outcomes." The outcome for New Zealanders will be a State Services Commissioner that's got real teeth and a Public Service led by senior public servants who are paid a wage that doesn't make everyday New Zealanders open their mouths wide with horror around how much they get paid without knowing why they get paid that much. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora."