Robertson Grant: Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:653;Page:2736] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I want to return to where we were slightly earlier in the debate when talking about the Ombudsmen’s increased powers. In my earlier call I was talking about the Ombudsmen’s ability to review an investigation or guide an investigation that a public sector agency had under way. Under section 15A inserted by clause 8 of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill the Ombudsmen can take over an investigation in a department. They can take over that investigation if they believe for instance that the authority or the organisation has decided not to investigate the matter for some reason or it has decided that it cannot progress it in a reasonable time period or because the Ombudsmen do not believe that the agency is actually capable of doing that investigation because it is so closely aligned with them. 
It is probably helpful at this time to take an example of what that might be. What is the situation where that would occur? Could it be the case of an official who is working away diligently on a proposal that he or she has been told to work on—for example a cycleway because there are proposals about things such as cycleways—and has been told that that it is important and that it came from a significant event like the Job Summit? So the person has been working away on it and has been putting forward ideas and then he or she finds out all of a sudden that the other people who have been working on the cycleway idea are not there any more; they have gone because apparently the proposal is not going to be funded this year next year or the year after. Those people have gone those jobs have gone and the people are out of the way. That official might be very concerned about what is going on there—what kind of wrongdoing has been undertaken in that department. The official has the right to raise a complaint and we know that the Office of the Ombudsmen is now empowered to be able to say that the office will take over the investigation because that action is not appropriate. 
It just gives us cause for thought at this time to think about the kind of staffing that the Office of the Ombudsmen will require to be able to implement this bill. Four or five key new tasks are being given to the Office of the Ombudsmen and they are the ability to take over an investigation the ability to look into people’s internal procedures on these issues and the need to provide information to people who wish to be whistleblowers. That is a lot of extra work. I think National members might want to take a call and tell us whether the funding for the Office of the Ombudsmen will be protected under this Government. Over the last few months we have consistently seen cuts into the Public Service cuts into agencies that we would not think would be taken down—like the Inland Revenue Department. If people think they have had problems getting hold of staff in that department in the past it will get worse under the National Government. We know that 250 staff will be cut from the Inland Revenue Department. 
Who is to say there will not be staff cut from the Office of the Ombudsmen? That office has been given an increased role under this bill so one would think there would be no way that staff numbers in the Office of the Ombudsmen could be cut. But the Inland Revenue Department was given an increased role. The department has been asked to look after tax changes changes to KiwiSaver and a new independent earner rebate. We would think it would need staff. But no! The National Government came into power and those 250 staff were told: “Out the door!” even though the department is doing the significant and important work that ordinary taxpayers expect it to do and from which they expect to receive good services. 
The Office of the Ombudsmen which has increased roles under this bill is the kind of agency that we would expect to be funded properly. Part 1 covers the extensions to the role of the Office of the Ombudsmen and we would expect the office to be funded properly. But we have no guarantee from this National Government that it will fund the office properly. Perhaps a speaker on the other side of the Chamber would like to take a call and guarantee that the Office of the Ombudsmen will receive the additional resources that it needs to fulfil its obligations which are outlined in Part 1. We have not seen any commitment from the National Government to adequately fund those kinds of key public services. 
We remind ourselves again that the Ombudsmen can take over an investigation. I think that is an important point because a lot of Public Service officials will be worried about their jobs under this Government—worried that their jobs will be cut. Will they be encouraged in that environment to blow the whistle? If they uncover a wrongdoing will they be encouraged to say they want to do something about that? We have no guarantee of that. It is vitally important that the Ombudsmen can move in where an employee is concerned about his or her ability to blow the whistle—and they will be concerned in the environment that the National Government is creating. The Ombudsmen’s enhanced powers are important they are significant and they must be resourced because the Office of the Ombudsmen is a key part of our democracy. We have seen other key parts of the Public Service run down—the Inland Revenue Department the Ministry of Social Development. It cannot happen to the Office of the Ombudsmen and we need a guarantee that the Ombudsmen will have the resources to implement the additional powers they will have under Part 1.