Fenton Darien: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-GeneralText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-General[Sitting date: 14 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:9842. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour):I am pleased to take a call on this motion on the 2012-13 alterations to appropriations and the 2013-14 appropriations for Officers of Parliament. As a member of the Officers of Parliament Committee I have become more personally acquainted with the fine calibre of people we have in the Office of the Ombudsmen the Office of the Auditor-General and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. During the consideration of this report all of the committee members were in accord about the excellent work done by these officers and we agreed particularly in the case of the Office of the Ombudsmen and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment that the offices should not be expected to continue without additional appropriations. So Labour supports the recommendations in the report from the Officers of Parliament Committee but we still have some reservations about the level of funding particularly for the Office of the Ombudsmen.Last year the Chief Ombudsman Beverley Wakem warned that the office was in crisis saying it was under considerable pressure in terms of staffing and funding and had been for the previous 3 years. She told the Government Administration Committee that the office’s baseline funding had been established on the basis that it would be actively working on 800 to 1000 cases at any one time but in fact it had been dealing with about double that. There were outstanding cases because of a lack of staffing to do the work and the workload had been increased by complaints from the Christchurch earthquake victims’ dealings with the Earthquake Commission and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. This was causing lengthy delays for people trying to hold the Government to account get answers or have their cases resolved. In addition Labour has seen Government Ministers systematically avoiding questions and refusing to reply to Official Information Act requests and therefore we believe loading the Ombudsmen with more and more work.We do believe that there is now a culture of secrecy and suspicion within the Public Service and that has been encouraged by the National Government and that has to stop. The decision by the Chief Ombudsman in December 2012 to review Public Service processes for handling official information requests was very timely. After all there have been a lot of botch-ups by National in the recent past and we do not believe that the Government has the right to shut down the flow of information to avoid public scrutiny. In a democracy the general public are entitled to know what their Government is up to. Under National New Zealanders are being denied access to the information that will allow them to make informed decisions about the Government’s performance. The National Government cannot conceal its mistakes or incompetence by hiding information from the public.When Chief Ombudsman Beverley Wakem appeared before the Officers of Parliament Committee she told us that in addition to the extra workload existing staff were underpaid and attracting new staff was a challenge. In some cases she said staff had literally been worked to death by exceeding their maximum tolerable workloads. It was clear to the committee that funding needed to be increased to keep pace with the workload and the pressure on the office and its staff or it would be unable to achieve its performance targets for resolving complaints and meeting the expectations as a watchdog for the public—and as the old saying goes justice delayed is justice denied. So the committee agreed unanimously that the Office of the Ombudsmen would be funded by an increase of $960000 for 2013-14 and in out-years and it would be able to employ six additional investigative staff in order to perform their statutory duties. The Ombudsmen asked us for funding to employ eight staff and Treasury recommended four. Labour believes that six was a better-than-nothing compromise even though clearly it would have been better to meet the Chief Ombudsman’s request for the resources she believed were needed not only to deal with the huge backlog facing the office but also to deal promptly and effectively with the growing number of complaints.I also note the Chief Ombudsman’s request for more funding to address the remuneration issues for staff given that they are disadvantaged compared with others in comparable positions in other agencies. We were told that retaining or attracting high-calibre staff at current salaries would be an ongoing challenge and Labour believes that this issue must be addressed in future Budgets.I want to acknowledge here the work of the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General. Members will note that there have been adjustments for remuneration determinations. We were told that the principal pressures on the budget of the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General over the past year has come from the inquiries it conducts into matters of public concern. Generally the office undertakes two inquiries a year but over the past year the office received an unprecedented number of requests regarding important issues and undertook six major inquiries. Recent inquiries of the office include the Government’s decision to negotiate with Skycity Entertainment Group for an international convention centre also aspects of ACC’s board-level governance and going back a bit further Pansy Wong and her husband’s use of parliamentary travel entitlements. If this expectation or demand continues the office told the committee that it would have to look at options such as taking longer to complete inquiries or potentially declining to take them on. This is something that Parliament needs to seriously consider. If we want this kind of scrutiny sustained in future years there will be issues of workload and funding that must be considered.The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment presented a strong case to the committee for an increase in her budget especially as the operating baseline of the commissioner had not increased for the past 6 years. Again the committee was unanimous in its appreciation of the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s office but noted that it managed with a very small staff of just 17 people. The office has a very wide-ranging role of inquiry and reporting on any matter where in the opinion of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment the environment may have or has been adversely affected. The committee accepts the cost increases and pressures that have been absorbed in operating efficiencies achieved over that time—and it was clear to us that there was really no fat left to squeeze out of this office. Again we heard of recruitment and retention difficulties: a loyal and hard-working staff who have managed in a climate of cost cutting and expectations on them that simply cannot be humanly coped with. So the committee agreed to fund a modest increase of $100000 in the appropriation for Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment for 2013-14 and out-years. Labour supports this increase but again warns that the expectations that we have of this office with its small staff and budget are unsustainable in the longer term.So to conclude Labour supports this motion. However we note concern at the ongoing financial constraints that the Officers of Parliament are facing. Thank you.