Parliamentary Agencies Delegations Legislation Bill

I move, That the Parliamentary Agencies Delegations Legislation Bill be now read a first time.

Can I begin, Madam Speaker, by congratulating you on your ascendancy to the Chair. This is the first time I have spoken in the House since you took up the role and I want to congratulate you on that.

I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. The bill makes a small but significant amendment to the law around how the two organisations that this House depends upon operate, the Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives, to allow them to work more closely together. A lot of work has been done in recent times around getting those two agencies to work more closely together, and one of the anomalies in the law means it actually creates a barrier to them working closely together, and I’ll talk more about that.

But before getting into the details of the bill, I will give people just a little bit of background about the organisations. The current configuration we have dates from the 1980s, when the Office of the Clerk and the Parliamentary Service were created. Until then, everything to do with the administration of Parliament was managed by the Legislative Department, with the Prime Minister being the responsible Minister for it.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Really?

Yeah, it’s actually quite interesting. So the Prime Minister actually had total control over Parliament, and I think that one of lessons from the early 1980s, in fact, was that they needed to change and Parliament needed to assert a little bit more control over its own affairs. Hence in the late 1980s, the Office of the Clerk and the Parliamentary Service were created to address that constitutional imbalance. Those two agencies report to the Speaker of the House and not to a member of the executive.

The development of the Clerk’s Office was intended to provide more effective scrutiny by Parliament of the executive—again, something that in the 1980s, when it was created, was a point of tension, and it was felt that the Clerk’s leadership role should be focused on developing an independent office, without the distraction of also leading a fairly disparate administrative organisation, hence the Parliamentary Service was established alongside of it.

These were enshrined in two separate pieces of legislation. The Clerk of the House of Representatives Act of 1988—under that, the leadership of the Clerk of the House developed, I think, a reputation for excellence and integrity that led it to be respected, and it is actually respected across Westminster parliamentary systems. New Zealand’s Parliament is held in high regard. I do want to reflect on some words about Dave McGee from his successor, Mary Harris, in 2014, when she reflected on the establishment of the Office of the Clerk, where she said, “As we started out as a new office, we had the advantage of the focus that the new structure provided. We were able to develop procedural and substantive advisory services to support the House and its committees without the distraction of having to worry about matters such as administration of members’ remuneration and services, the maintenance of a historic building. This was of great advantage in building a strong and resilient Clerk’s Office.”

The Parliamentary Service—created in 1985 by the Parliamentary Service Act of 1985, superseded by the Parliamentary Service Act of 2000—has the task of running the parliamentary precincts and acting as the employer of all of the staff who support members of Parliament, here in the complex and around the country. It would be fair to say that if there has been controversy around those two organisations, it tends to have been around the Parliamentary Service rather than the Office of the Clerk. I think that’s probably a reflection of the complexity of the tasks that it has been given, and the somewhat unique nature of the parliamentary environment in which it operates.

But the principle at the heart of this—and it is actually an important principle we consider in the legislative change that we’re making—is the preservation of the independence of the Office of the Clerk. The parliamentary scrutiny function is so vitally important, particularly in a unicameral Parliament, as we have in New Zealand, where there really isn’t anybody else to scrutinise the decisions of the executive. The independence of the Office of the Clerk is something that is incredibly important. Again, to quote from Mary Harris’ words: “They must give free and frank advice fearlessly”. Therefore, the guardianship role the Office of the Clerk has shouldn’t be constrained by any conflicting responsibilities or considerations. Mary Harris has argued that it would be difficult to maintain that independence if the Office of the Clerk was located within the Parliamentary Service. I think that’s important, because what we’re doing is we are bringing the two agencies closer together with this legislation, but we are not amalgamating them. The Office of the Clerk will remain independent, and that is something that is incredibly important.

The organisations have been working more closely together. They’ve been doing things like sharing IT systems. They have been doing things like sharing some staff functions, where it is appropriate to do so, and they have come up with a list of other areas where they want to be able to work together more closely and to share things together.

So there are two parts of this bill: one makes changes to the Clerk of the House of Representatives Act of 1988, the other makes changes to the Parliamentary Service Act of 2000. It does a very simple thing—it allows members of those two organisations to delegate some of their responsibilities or their functions to a member of the other organisation. Obviously, they can do that in a way that does not impinge on the Office of the Clerk’s independence.

So, first and foremost, it’s proposed that a single consolidated human resource service could cover both organisations, being provided by the Parliamentary Service to the Office of the Clerk. At the moment, that’s not possible; under this law change, that would be possible. The Clerk can’t delegate a personnel function to the Parliamentary Service at the moment; this law change will allow them to do so. There is a lot of focus on the HR practices around the parliamentary complex at the moment. Therefore, this is one of the prerequisite legislative requirements for us to be able to deal with the findings around the Debbie Francis report, for example.

There is also a single parliamentary engagement team being established by the Office of the Clerk and the Parliamentary Service to manage public education and public engagement into parliamentary relations, school visits, website management, and so on. Those are administrative jobs which—it does make sense to draw them together, because whilst we might see that there’s an important distinction between the two functions, to the public it’s all just Parliament. Bringing those two things together does allow that to happen.

The deputy chief executive customer service is a Parliamentary Service employee; some of his staff are employees of the Office of the Clerk. If the General Manager and the Clerk have the ability to delegate to staff from each organisation, that person would be able to exercise personnel and financial delegations on a more lasting and robust basis, and this bill allows for those things to happen.

So this is not a bill that’s going to set the world on fire. It is not a bill that many people outside of the parliamentary complex will be particularly excited about, but it is actually quite an important streamlining of the way the parliamentary complex operates. It does safeguard, as I said, the independence of the Office of the Clerk, which is something that I think is really important—particularly important for the Opposition because, as we know from the 1980s experience, scrutiny of the Government of the day relies on good, robust parliamentary procedure and processes, and the Office of the Clerk plays a really important role in that.

So I think this is a minor change, it’s a sensible change, and I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the National Party, which supports this bill and supports the comments of the Leader of the House. It is small but significant bill, and we commend it to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to rise and speak as one of the Government speakers on the Parliamentary Agencies Delegations Legislation Bill. Before I deal with the content of the bill, can I first congratulate you on your ascendancy to the role of Assistant Speaker. It has been my pleasure, in the nearly 11 years that I’ve been a member of this House, to work alongside you in a variety of roles. I anticipate a lot of fun working alongside you as the Assistant Speaker of the House.

This bill, as the Leader of the House said, is a short and reasonably technical bill that may not set the public of New Zealand alight with interest but is an important change to the way this House operates and the way the support functions of this House operate. Therefore, it is important to the functioning of our democracy. It does some simple things which will better support the Parliament and our ability to deliver on the responsibilities that the people of New Zealand grant to us as members of Parliament. It is an omnibus bill because it amends two Acts, the Clerk of the House of Representatives Act 1988 and the Parliamentary Service Act 2000.

Essentially, what each of those two parts do is provide the ability for the Clerk of the House of Representatives and for the General Manager of the Parliamentary Service to delegate any of the functions or powers of their office to a person from the other agency. The legislation is designed to support the desire of each of those two offices to work more closely together in delivering the functions that we need as members of Parliament and that this House needs to be able to operate effectively.

The two agencies—the Office of the Clerk and Parliamentary Service—wish to implement a closer working relationship, to ensure that the functions and services performed by each agency are aligned as closely as possible, and that duplication is minimised. The agencies wish to be able to share a number of services. As the Leader of the House mentioned, one of the services which it has been recommended the two offices share is a joint human resources function. This is a recommendation that came out of the Francis review—obviously, an important piece of work that every member of this House takes seriously and which needs to be considered in fullness and the recommendations of which need to be considered. This is a good opportunity for Parliament and for the Office of the Clerk and for the Parliamentary Service to be able to implement one of those key recommendations from that review.

Additionally, the Office of the Clerk and the Parliamentary Service have already set up a single parliamentary engagement team to manage education, public engagement, and inter-parliamentary relations: things like school visits—a very important part of our democratic system, making sure that young New Zealanders get an opportunity to learn about, and interact with, our Parliament—as well as communications and website management. That team has staff from both organisations. However, at present, the manager, who is an employee of the Office of the Clerk, has to operate under a secondment to the Parliamentary Service so that she can exercise personnel and financial delegations for those in her team who are employed by the Parliamentary Service. It would be preferable, of course, for her to hold delegations from the Clerk and from the general manager.

Working closely together, of course, is not the same as amalgamating the two organisations. The independence of the Office of the Clerk would be threatened by amalgamation, and must continue to be protected. So this legislation looks to strike a balance that secures the independence of the Clerk and of the Parliamentary Service, whilst allowing the two organisations to function in a much more streamlined and compatible fashion.

I want to reiterate the point made by the Leader of the House that it is important that we maintain the independence from Government of these two organisations. It was an important split to make back in the 1980s, to disaggregate the functions of Parliament from those of the Government, so that Parliament can be a genuinely independent voice and have the opportunity to properly scrutinise the functions of the executive. This legislation continues to uphold that.

It’s a good piece of legislation, a straightforward piece of legislation. I commend it to the House.

Madam Speaker, I would love to join in the chorus of support that’s been resonating around the House this evening, to say that this is actually the first time I’ve had the pleasure of standing in the House whilst you’ve been in the chair. I do actually miss your position here—[Gesticulates]—sorry, did I just give you a whack in the face, a bit of a backhand?—but what a great job you’re doing.

I just want to say that, in actual fact, the people that are at home watching this fantastic debate in this House will be absolutely enthralled with how riveting it is and how important this legislation is. I have to say Matt Doocey’s contribution this evening was probably one of the most articulate, poignant speeches—all 18 seconds of it—that I’ve ever heard that member give, and I just would like to commend him for his wonderful support for Government legislation, which is going through this House at a good rate of knots.

But, look, I guess the best way to describe this for those people that are back home on the couch watching us discuss this bill, the Parliamentary Agencies Delegations Legislation Bill, is that there are a lot of parliamentary terms and it’s broken down quite simply. The Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk are the unsung heroes of Parliament. Those are the two functions of this House that make this House run so smoothly and eloquently on a daily basis. And the service and work that the Parliamentary Service gives to members of Parliament particularly, with their finance and with marketing and their promotional side, is absolutely second to none, and the role that they play on a regular basis—some people have a more regular basis of going through the hiring of staff than others.

And, of course, the Clerks that sit there day in day out—if you’ve ever seen that movie The Matrix, to articulate the role that they play, they’re like the Oracle in the movie The Matrix. That’s it, where they’re flying back through the sky, because they are the Oracle. They’re the all-telling, all-knowing organisation that makes this place run, and any time there’s a question or a query—even the Speaker occasionally has to go and, you know, call to their knowledge to come and feed that to us and to make sure that the decisions are being made.

So to bring this omnibus bill, this wide-ranging bill, together, ensures that we run effectively and efficiently for public good, to reduce taxpayers’ money going into this organisation unnecessarily. One of the very important functions of this bill is that it actually enables Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk to actually use the human resourcing function together and share that information. And I think that is absolutely vital to ensure that we get better efficiencies and effectiveness from our Parliament and our politicians to ensure that those laws that we are creating are actually going some way to effect positive change for the future.

So in the past, I think there was a discussion that was had in the House of Windsor in the UK, and the discussion was based around the potential amalgamation of the two functionalities of the Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk. And it was decided that it would take away the autonomy that both of these independent bodies need to function to give their support to the two parts of Parliament: the Parliamentary Service side and the actual functionality of the House, through the Clerk’s side. And I think this bill gives that basic autonomy. It gives that support and balance and security moving forward. And that’s why it’s great to see all members, including Matt Doocey, come out with this absolutely great—

💬 Jamie Strange: The enthusiasm from Matt.

It was a very enthusiastic speech in the House tonight, and I just love to see this sort of “Kumbaya” moment where we can actually share in good peace and harmony and see this bill go through. Look, we’ve got six minutes until tonight collapses, and I’d love to hear what the Greens have got to say. So that’s all we’ve got to say. New Zealand First absolutely supports this, and over to you, Gareth Hughes.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. To keep the analogy, going if the Clerks are the Oracle, I guess that makes the Rt Hon Winston Peters Morpheus—to continue that member’s analogy.

I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support the Parliamentary Agencies Delegations Legislation Bill. I really appreciated the history lesson from the Leader of the House, the Hon Chris Hipkins. I actually recall an anecdote—I think it was from Sir Geoffrey Palmer or Mike Moore, at the time when the Prime Minister was literally in charge of the Parliamentary Service equivalent, and he literally picked out pieces of furniture for the then Opposition. I shudder to think of a Parliament where the Prime Minister picks the furniture for the MPs.

This legislation is simply about avoiding duplication, encouraging the Office of the Clerk and the Parliamentary Service to work together. It makes sense to have a single consolidated human resources department. It’s a really pragmatic, technical, positive step forward that will improve democratic engagement and, ultimately, save the taxpayer money. That’s why the Green Party will support it.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.