Curran Clare: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-GeneralText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-General[Sitting date: 14 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:9852. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South):A functioning democracy requires functioning and well-resourced watchdogs. They are the organisations that provide the important checks and balances. They give the public confidence that the Government is being held to account that there is transparency and that the values—the important values—of independent scrutiny are being upheld.In New Zealand unfortunately we have a shrinking media environment. We have under-resourced watchdogs which is why we are standing here today having this discussion. Those watchdogs include the Office of the Ombudsmen the Office of the Auditor-General and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. They also include the Privacy Commissioner the Human Rights Commission and many many other important watchdogs. Alongside that there is an unrelenting move away from the notion of a public media to a commercial media in the broadcasting environment which has eroded our ability—and public confidence—to uphold those important principles and values in our country.So when we heard from the Office of the Ombudsmen in a media release on 27 September last year that the office had ended that financial year with 10636 complaints and other contacts received which was up 22 percent on the previous year and that the number of cases had grown from 800 live cases to more than 1700 at one time shock waves went through the community about how this could have happened and what the impact was. “A crisis of democracy” was what was being said at that time. It is absolutely critical and important that we are here today discussing and agreeing on providing more resources to that particular office but the other offices are also under pressure and we must not take our eye off the impact that that is having as well.You have to ask yourself why there has been such an explosion and I know that other speakers have touched on this. The first explanation is that citizens are rightly becoming more demanding and more aware of the importance of transparency—there is no doubt about that—and technology has encouraged and allowed that to happen. But the second thing which is the most disturbing thing is that this Government is becoming more secretive. So on the one hand you have got the people wanting more transparency and on the other hand you have got a Government that is becoming more secretive and making it harder for people to actually access information.Our Offices of Parliament are swamped. There is no doubt about that. That is why we are having this discussion. These offices provide a valuable and important service to Parliament and the New Zealand public and it is absolutely vital that they are sufficiently funded to be able to carry out their full and proper investigations.I want to give you a couple of examples of just how difficult it is for the office to actually carry out investigations and of what is leading to that explosion in the number of complaints to the Office of the Ombudsmen in particular. This motion applies only to the Offices of Parliament. However as I have said that under-resourcing and overburdening of those agencies is endemic under this Government.Here is one example of what has happened in recent times. We have all heard now of the issues around Solid Energy—around the collapse of a State-owned enterprise through mismanagement and ministerial neglect. Soon after the company’s financial woes became public knowledge it appeared before the Commerce Committee for a financial review. While before the committee the acting chief executive officer and the chair were as one could say economical with the truth about the availability of the recently departed chief executive to appear before that committee they also declined to answer many of the committee’s questions as they were not present when the actual decisions were made that led to the demise of that company. Financial reviews are an essential part of Parliament. They do ensure that taxpayers receive value by holding Government departments and State-owned enterprises accountable. Government members of the committee have further blocked our ability to do this by objecting to a request for an inquiry.As a last-ditch attempt to gain insight into Solid Energy’s circumstances my colleague Clayton Cosgrove lodged an Official Information Act request from Solid Energy. It responded asking that the 1-month deadline be extended by a further 6 weeks. Treasury also refused to provide a date for the release of relevant information on its website declining an Official Information Act request because the information would soon be publicly available. Even journalists attempting to access background information were stymied by the Minister’s office with his refusal to release even in part a scoping document that brought to light the overwhelming size of Solid Energy’s debt. This was a complete disregard for public accountability and an excessive use of secrecy by the Government which is leading to the unmanageable workload on our watchdog agencies. This is why these complaints are going to the Office of the Ombudsmen and why it is being so swamped. When the Opposition has no mechanism by which to access information and hold public entities and their Government masters to account it undermines democracy.This is another example. As I am Labour’s broadcasting spokesperson my office frequently makes Official Information Act requests of Television New Zealand (TVNZ) or the Minister of Broadcasting in relation to TVNZ. Recently I found it necessary to complain to the Ombudsman. Why? A request was made to the Minister’s office and this was in mid-February seeking copies of the quarterly reports provided to the Minister from TVNZ. It was not a difficult request. It was not a complicated request. In mid-March the Minister wrote back to me seeking an extension of an additional 20 working days. He wrote again 2 days later advising me that the request was now being transferred to TVNZ as it was more relevant to it. Finally on 30 April TVNZ declined the request in full. It deemed this necessary to protect its commercial interests.Ultimately what should have been a straightforward request for advice provided to a Minister by the State-owned broadcaster has taken over 2 months to be refused and then for a reason that is now under investigation by the Ombudsman. We hope that the Ombudsman will review this decision. But these are just two examples of the length of time that it takes to get requests answered by Ministers and by ministries and then the deferrals of those requests and then the obfuscation of the responses.The Government is a significant influence in the day-to-day lives of many New Zealanders. People rightly expect that it should behave in a predictable open and transparent way where it can. In a democracy public confidence relies on citizens knowing what the Government is doing and why and being able to take part in debates knowing that the Government is listening and responding. Greater public confidence in the Government through having more open government is one of the goals of the party on this side of the House.One of the things that would result in a lesser workload for the Office of the Ombudsmen and provide confidence to public citizens that the principles of transparency are being upheld is the proactive release of information to establish—as is our policy—a default practice that Ministers and Government agencies release all Cabinet papers and other relevant papers on to a dedicated website in line with the Official Information Act once a decision is announced by the Government. Obviously exceptions would apply but the ultimate aim is to make information available and to be transparent. If we did that we would be killing two birds with one stone. We would be demonstrating transparency and we would be reducing the workload on one of our most important watchdogs.Motion agreed to and Address agreed to.