Robertson Grant: Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:653;Page:2729] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to be rising to speak on the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. Funnily enough it is another bill of the previous Labour Government after the last one we were discussing. This one is in the name of the Hon David Parker my excellent colleague. So it is good to see that the National Government has picked up this important bill and is taking it through its stages. We await with interest the new ideas from such up-and-comers as Simon Bridges and Amy Adams—we are waiting for their new ideas to come forward. 
This bill is important and Part 1 deals with its substance. We can just remind ourselves that the purpose of the bill is to ensure that the Protected Disclosures Act works properly so that those people who are whistleblowers those who are able to see wrongdoing or corruption are supported to blow the whistle on those matters and not feel there will be consequences against them or that the process works against them. I think that that is a very laudable goal and Part 1 outlines the ways in which that will happen. 
The timing of this bill is in fact perfect; right now plenty of potential whistleblowers are out there in the Public Service. Public servants were told by National in the election campaign that National would cap not cut the Public Service. National was going to keep the services that were there under Labour; that was what would happen. But we have seen consistently since National came into office job cuts in the Public Service. We have seen important positions in places like the Inland Revenue Department the Ministry of Social Development the Ministry of Justice and the Tertiary Education Commission cut out by National against its election promise. In the end the people of New Zealand will suffer because the services that New Zealanders rely on will be cut. We know that people in those public sector organisations need to be protected and that is what this bill will do. They need to be protected from a National Government that is on a slash-and-burn exercise. It is under the radar admittedly but it is still a slash-and-burn exercise. 
I can tell the Committee that plenty of people in the public sector are already blowing the whistle and this bill will provide them with further protections. But what they are blowing the whistle on is the National Government going through and looking at each department and agency—not looking at the kinds of services it should be providing but rather looking at whom it can cut out. The National Government is not thinking about what New Zealanders would actually benefit from in terms of public services but about how it can cut jobs. That is the agenda of the National Government here—to simply reduce the number of people working in the public sector regardless of the services they actually provide. So we need protections for those people. We need protections so they can blow the whistle and point out the kinds of wrongdoing. 
It would be interesting to hear a Minister perhaps take a call to tell us whether public servants who see serious wrongdoing in their department—as people’s jobs are cut out and as people are excluded from their particular roles in Government agencies and ministries—would be covered by legislation like this. It would be an interesting thing to hear a Minister take a call on. 
But we know that in public sector agencies from time to time there is a need to address these sorts of concerns; there is a need to blow the whistle. One of the things we learnt from the Protected Disclosures Act in its earlier incarnations was that although it was a good Act not enough was done to ensure that it could be used properly. In particular— 
Jacqui Dean 
: Under a Labour Government that would have been happening. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: It was reviewed I tell Ms Dean; that is exactly right. It was reviewed by the Labour Government after being brought in in 2000. It was reviewed in 2003 and it is a good thing to see how an Act goes how it works. The changes were then brought forward to this House. 
One of the most important changes is in the enhancement of the role of the Ombudsmen to provide good information not only to the people who are blowing the whistle but also to the agencies and departments where those people work. Under new section 6B to be inserted in the principal Act by clause 6 the Ombudsmen’s role will be extended so that they can provide guidance and information to employees. This is important because a lot of people do not necessarily know what all the rules are—what serious wrongdoing is and how they can bring matters forward. In the end this provision will mean that the Ombudsmen will have the ability both to weed out complaints that perhaps should not be going through under the Protected Disclosures Act and to shed light on those areas where people are unsure and need some reassurance that they can take matters forward. Section 6B does that by enhancing the Ombudsmen’s role. New section 6C which is also to be inserted by clause 6 also allows the Ombudsmen to request information on the internal procedures of an agency to see whether they are up to scratch. 
Simon Bridges 
: It’s a great section. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: It is a great new section I say to Mr Bridges because it means that agencies will now be required to have proper internal procedures. People will have to follow those procedures if they are to lay a complaint under this legislation. At the moment not everybody knows where to find those procedures or even whether they exist at all. The Ombudsmen can now look into those procedures and ensure that people will have that information. 
New section 15B which is to be inserted by clause 8 further enhances the Ombudsmen’s powers because it means that they can review and guide investigations. There has been a suggestion that from time to time investigations get shuffled around within a department.