Wong Pansy: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Wong Pansy: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 14 December 2004. Volume:622;Page:17849. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 When the Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill was introduced to the House in February this year we were told that some of the drivers behind the bill were concerns about Crown entity behaviour and problems with leadership development within the State sector. The bill aims to improve flexibility and retain accountability for public moneys etc. The National Party played the responsible Opposition party role and in the interests of demonstrating goodwill towards the reasons that we were given for the bill we supported the bill to the select committee and raised a lot of reservations. 
I am afraid that after the passage of this bill through the select committee we are not convinced even following the major rewrite of Part 1 that it has answered our major concerns with the philosophy of these changes and I will proceed to outline them. National will not be supporting the bill in its second reading unless there are dramatic changes in the Committee stage. I also call on United Future and the Green Party and say that those two parties owe it to the public not to casually give away their consent to support this bill through the Committee stage and third reading. 
It was quite disturbing to hear the Green Party co-leader Rod Donald say that this bill is far from perfect and they would accept it. I did not know that the Green Party campaigned to come to the Parliament so it could support anything that is less than ideal or perfect. I think it is a demonstration of how unfortunately in this Parliament the United Future party and the Green Party seem to fall over each other to gain favour from the Labour Government. In doing that they have given away a chance to make sure this important legislation the Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill gets the attention it deserves. 
A bombshell was dropped at the Finance and Expenditure Committee when the Clerk of the House brought in a 26-page submission. At this stage I have a question to ask and I look forward to the Minister of Finance during the Committee stage answering some of the queries that some of us have. Was it intentional for the executive to bring in Part 1 which allows the executive to override the supremacy of the Parliament in making sure that members of Parliament would not be able to request information from various Government departments unless under some strict conditions and also limit the ability to examine the accounts? I want to know whether there was a deliberate attempt by the executive to instruct the writers of the legislation to achieve that effect and indeed they have been caught out by the Clerk of the House. 
Equally worrying is whether the executive actually did not intend to do that. But the legislation has ended up in such a shape that a question has to be asked whether the principal advisers the architects who are responsible for the drafting of this bill set out to rewrite this bill in this way. The Green Party and United Future say that Part 1 about which the Clerk of the House has raised a lot of concerns has been substantially rewritten so there is no problem in supporting the bill. But what happened to Part 2 which concerned the State sector management part and also Part 3 where the universities have expressed a lot of concern about the intrusion of the Government into their academic freedom? 
So why should those two parties the Green Party and United Future simply accept that Part 1 has been caught out by the Clerk of the House and simply cave in to support Part 2 and Part 3? No doubt Mr Speaker you will allow us time to raise rigorous questions during the Committee stage. 
We also raise objection about some of the other issues. The first is that during the last 10 years the Fiscal Responsibility Act has played a significant role in guiding the focus and behaviour of past Governments. It has served the people well. We are opposed to the collapse of this independent legislation to become part of the Public Finance Act. Of course the Minister and others have argued that it is no big deal because the substance of the Act has been maintained and the parts strengthened. But the reality is that the form and perception is just as important. 
We were told during the select committee stage that when the Fiscal Responsibility Act first collapsed to become part of the Public Finance Act it was going to be Part 1 of that Act. At the end it became Part 2 of the Act. The reason we were told was that it was really important to demonstrate accountability and presentation of the Government accounts was important so that had to be Part 1 and the Fiscal Responsibility Act had to become Part 2. 
This example in itself demonstrates that the order of presentation and the collapse of independent legislation to become part of other legislation is just as important to set the tone of the intention of the executive. The executive is sending out a message that the focus on constraining Government spending through a forward-looking document such as this independent legislation the Fiscal Responsibility Act is not as important. I point out that at times form is just as important as substance. We are not convinced that the Fiscal Responsibility Act particularly under this “tax and spend” Government is ready to be collapsed and lose its independent status. 
The other point is that the second part is meant to strengthen the public service sector. One of the newly introduced functions in this legislation allows the State Services Commissioner to review the machinery of government across all areas including allocation of functions to and between departments and other agencies and the desirability of the creation of a new department. One assumes that this new provision is not intended as a one-off but as a permanent ongoing function of the commissioner. What concerns us is that the process was not spelt out as to who can request a review by the State Services Commission and how often and what were the criteria for setting up new departments. One has to have a lot of confidence when vesting so much power in a Government department.