Woods Megan: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-GeneralYear 2015/16Text is subject to correctionWoods Megan: Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-GeneralYear 2015/16[Sitting date: 30 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:3085. Text is subject to correction.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram):It is also my pleasure to take a call in this debate and to endorse the additional funding that has been given to our Offices of Parliament. I would like to join with the previous speakers and acknowledge the very fine work and the very fine individuals who carry out these very important constitutional tasks within our Parliament. I would also like to echo some of the words of the previous speakers around how some of the appropriations are simply not enough. I too am going to refer to the Office of the Ombudsmen and I want to specifically talk about the work that the Ombudsman has been doing in the case of Christchurch because the Office of the Ombudsmen and in particular the Chief Ombudsman has been a very important voice in holding the Government to account in how it is that the recovery of Christchurch is being managed.Just to give an indication of the kind of level of work that the Ombudsman has been doing in regard to in particular the Earthquake Commission and the payout that the individuals are getting through the Earthquake Commission in 2012 the Ombudsman received 785 complaints regarding the Earthquake Commission. The year before that it received an additional 737. In all by 2012 the Earthquake Commission had received more than 6500 Official Information Act requests. This is how desperate people in Canterbury were to receive information about how their claim was progressing through the Earthquake Commission. When that did not go well the recourse that these people had was to go to the Ombudsman and say that they had not been well served. As I mentioned the Chief Ombudsman Dame Beverley Wakem has been an incredibly important voice in joining with community leaders and joining with advocates in Christchurch and saying that the Earthquake Commission has to treat its customers better.In terms of the stress—and the Human Rights Commissioner has addressed this—that has been put on people in not knowing what is happening with the repair of their house which is something pretty fundamental about where they live this has been a particularly difficult aspect of the rebuild and it has been an incredibly important voice from Dame Beverley that has been voiced here and I would like to acknowledge that. Just this year in February when an independent report found major failings in the way that the Earthquake Commission handled its customers Dame Beverley strongly advised the Earthquake Commission to release that report publicly expressed that she was very disappointed at the very low-key launch that was around that report and urged the Earthquake Commission to do more. Because of course it was the Office of the Ombudsmen that produced a very important piece of work along with the Privacy Commissioner back in November 2013 which was Information fault lines: Accessing EQC information in Canterbury. It found that Official Information Act requests and processes were overly complicated risk-adverse and adding to the stress that was there. As members of my party and this House have previously urged we need to be adequately resourcing this officer of our Parliament.I would also like to address another important role that is covered off in these reports on the Officers of Parliament and that is the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. The commissioner has a very very specific role within our Parliament and that is to maintain and improve New Zealand’s environment by influencing decision-makers through well-reasoned and independent advice. I would like to acknowledge the work of Dr Jan Wright and her office—the high quality of work that is produced by that office—and the fact that we as parliamentarians all benefit from what is well-reasoned and independent advice. I think that the moniker that Dr Wright is often labelled with in the media that of “the voice of reason” is something that many of us within this Parliament would concur with and many of us would see that Dr Wright’s contributions are of a high standard and beneficial to us.One of the things that is incredibly important is resourcing. If we have a look at what it is that Dr Wright and her team have managed to produce just this year for the edification of not only the public but also us as parliamentarians we see an impressive list of reports. There are reports on drilling for oil and gas in New Zealand and the environment oversight and regulation that is required for that; mining on conservation estates; hydroelectricity on wild rivers; climate change and rising seas; the long-finned eel; the first commentary on the 2015-year domain report of course; and just today a report on stewardship land was tabled. So we see that a huge breadth and a huge complexity of areas are covered by Dr Wright and her team whose reports I am sure that we as members of this Parliament all eagerly await the arrival of in our offices and devour when they do arrive.Dr Wright not only produces reports but she often submits on legislation. This is a very important submission when it arrives; it is always well-reasoned and contains a great deal of sense. Dr Wright is also moved to sometimes comment on various environmental reforms that are going through and only just a month or so ago Dr Wright said the Resource Management Act was no place for us to be having balance between the environment and the economy and warned us that the Resource Management Act in fact is the legislation that is our fundamental environmental protection in this country and needs to be respected thus. So we have very wise words.But of course the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and her office is about to receive a new statutory function under the Environmental Reporting Bill which is to be reported back to this House next week and undergo a further stage towards its passage. Under this bill the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment will have a very important statutory function in terms of commentary. We saw the first of these commentaries coming out even before the bill was introduced in the Air domain report but there will actually be a requirement for the parliamentary commissioner and her team to produce these commentaries on the domain reports as they are produced. This increased function is obviously going to result in increased work for the office and for the commissioner and her team.This is something that there is some discussion about in the report that we have before us today. It talks about the Environmental Reporting Bill proposing to establish a new system and says that additional funding has been given. An increase of $450000 was given to Dr Wright and her team to initially set up what is required in order to fulfil the statutory functions. This was given for the 2014-15 financial year and for the following years an increase of $300000 has been given—so $300000 in the 2016-17 years. And in subsequent years that funding will be reassessed as required. What we did hear when Dr Wright came to our select committee and we asked about this was that further assessment and reassessment of the workload is required and Dr Wright made it very clear the drop in funding could put a pressure on the office that could possibly result in staff lay-offs.This very important constitutional function the Parliamentary Commissioner fulfils in keeping us and the public more informed on very complex often very complicated and very technical topics is something that we simply cannot afford to lose as a Parliament. It is incredibly important that we have this level of independent and technical input so that our decision making in important areas can be better. I would not like to see the decisions that we make in this House suffer because we are not getting the same standard of technical and independent advice that we have grown accustomed to from the Parliamentary Commissioner.I would like to see the fact that this committee would look very closely at the future requirements of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and her team. We have seen that these Officers of Parliament are incredibly important for the proper functioning of our democracy. They are incredibly important for how we can do our jobs as parliamentarians. It is not good enough that we underfund these institutions and these officers. As my colleague Chris Hipkins said in his speech this needs to be recognised by both sides of the House because in 2017 members on the Government benches will be on this side of the House and they will appreciate the oversight of the Office of the Ombudsmen and the Office of the Auditor-General and the advice from the Parliamentary Commissioner in informing them as parliamentarians. Thank you.