Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill

Well, the hour draws nigh, but we still have some important work before us in this House, and that is the conclusion of this reading of the Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill. It is an important bill because of the role of ombudsmen within our democratic system as a protector of the public interests.

One of the things that’s important about living in a democracy isn’t just that you get to vote every three years but that we have just and reasonable processes within our systems; that people are treated fairly; that if they are not, they have some recourse; and that, ultimately, the State will ensure that people have their rights protected and affirmed, particularly when those people might be in vulnerable situations or might be interfacing with powerful institutions, be they private companies or be they public entities. One of the very important bedrocks of our system in New Zealand in terms of ensuring those rights for people is the system of the ombudsman.

Ombudsmen in New Zealand were established, I think it was, in 1975 under the Ombudsmen Act, and they are, essentially, in most situations for people a final port of call. If you are, for example, having problems in terms of your relationship with your bank or your insurance company, as a citizen, and you work through the bank’s internal processes, you’re not satisfied with the outcome, you perhaps feel that you have been poorly treated, where do you go to from there? What we have in place in our system is an ombudsman system whereby people can access a free and impartial person—institution—who can look at the situation and who can judge what has happened and can make some determinations about a fair and equitable position going forward.

What this piece of legislation does is ensure the integrity of the ombudsman system by, as the title of the bill would suggest, ensuring that we protect the name of “Ombudsman”. It’s a Swedish word. It comes out of the Swedish system. Of course, we often look to the Nordic countries for the public values that they inject into their systems. This has been an important part of it, but, if people are going to have confidence in the notion of going to an ombudsman, they need to know that it’s a term that actually has some meaning. It can’t just be a term that, for example, a public or a private entity sets up to try and give a fig leaf of cover in terms of process. It actually has to be a term that has some meaning.

So what this bill does is ensure that that term that’s set up in the Ombudsman Act 1975 is restricted to either an Ombudsman—and that is someone who is directly appointed under the 1975 Act—or a person who is appointed to a position established by the Chief Ombudsman, such as an assistant ombudsman or a deputy ombudsman or any public sector organisation approved by the Minister under the administration of that Act. So it’s quite narrowly defined under this piece of legislation, which person can be termed an ombudsman. There’s also a very specific provision in this piece of legislation to ensure that, I think, probably the two ombudsman who are probably about the most frequently accessed by New Zealanders—being the Banking Ombudsman and the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman—are permitted to continue using that name under the Act.

I’ve had a number of dealings, particularly with the Banking Ombudsman, and have always been really impressed by the service that they provide to New Zealanders and by the transparency of their processes. So it’s quite appropriate that this bill does carve out and ensure that they are able to continue using those names. It also protects the rights of the Financial Services Complaints Limited in respect of a recent Court of Appeal judgment to use the name “Ombudsman” should it be given permission to by the Chief Ombudsman under the current law. So it is an important piece of legislation.

It’s been considered by the Governance and Administration Committee, and they appear to have done a pretty thorough job of this piece of legislation. They’ve made a number of relatively minor changes to the legislation that came to their committee but their work seems to have proceeded very satisfactorily.

In conclusion, this is an important bill. As I said at the outset of my comments, the ombudsman system is one of the ways in which we protect the rights of New Zealanders as they go about their lawful business. It’s one of the ways in which we balance interests within our society so that the little guy—the small business or the ordinary person—isn’t held hostage by their relative lack of resources versus a large public sector entity or a large private business. So it is important that we protect the name. This bill does what it says on the tin by doing that by some relatively simple mechanisms and I’m pleased to see that it appears to be enjoying widespread support, if not rapturous enthusiasm, tonight around the House and I very happily commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I rise in, what I imagine will be, my last contribution for the year, and I begin, of course, by wishing everyone a very merry Christmas.

💬 Simeon Brown: Merry Christmas, Nicola.

Thank you to my colleague Simeon Brown. But such am I taken by the spirit, I still need to rise in opposition to this bill.

This is the kind of bill that really is a bit of a waste of the House’s time. It doesn’t really do anything that needs to be done. In fact, the officials advising on this bill were unable to identify any evidence of the nature or extent of the problem that it seeks to resolve, and, in fact, all it does is transfer the power regarding the protection of the name “Ombudsman” from the Ombudsman to the Minister. Now, National of course supports the unique role that the Ombudsmen play in our democracy and the integrity of those roles, but this bill is not needed and we oppose it.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and it’s a pleasure to be the last speaker, in what could be my last speech, in the House too for this year. But you never know—you’re in such hot demand these days, and I might be back tomorrow. What I can say is merry Christmas to you all, on all sides of the House, and a happy New Year.

I am pleased to talk on this bill because, as a member of the Governance and Administration Committee, we did do some work on this in terms of looking carefully at, really, the integrity of the name, and that was really the impetus for a lot of the submissions and the conversation that the select committee undertook. We wanted to ensure that the name “ombudsman”—and we certainly had lots of conversation locally and influence globally, internationally, from others who use the name. In fact, it was an educational lesson at that because some felt that it could be more inclusive—that’s a better way of saying it—and so we explored how the name could be more inclusive, or whether that was going to be contradictory in terms of people understanding what an ombudsman’s role actually does.

So point two there is seeking clarity, and, you know, I always believe that it doesn’t matter what the politics of some of this stuff is about; what matters really is that we get clarity. So, for those who maybe want to use the name for their organisation or their entity in the future, now it becomes really clear to them why they can’t. So the select committee spent quite some time working through that process to avoid point three—and it’s pretty obvious—which is the confusion that that causes. We’ll see here in the bill that those that are already using it—the Banking Ombudsman and the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman—will retain the use of that title, but it will provide clarity for those who intend to use it but will not be allowed to.

So I think there was no waste of time here. We didn’t spend a long time on it. We spent quality time on it, making sure that that was understood, and the submissions were robust, I thought, for something that seemed to be minor. Many people had put a lot of thought into it because the name carries some status, and when we looked overseas, certainly, some jurisdictions had the name used in all sorts of ways, and much more than I had ever thought, but, certainly, the rigour that we will apply by having this piece of legislation in place will be a lot stricter than in other jurisdictions where people can just really self-appoint, and there was certainly a desire to ensure that that does not happen and did not happen or it wasn’t able to easily happen without there being some clarity. So this is important, and I know that the Chief Ombudsman himself was very keen to make sure that we certainly got this right and progressed this to its finishing point so that he can move forward with his entity and expand on the brief that he undertakes with that integrity and clarity of role.

I do want to thank the select committee for their work. I see that there is a view from the other side in there. I think those are strong words, but, actually, the members on the committee were—I wouldn’t say that was accurate from them. I would say that they were supportive of the process as such, and therefore I think that this is a good piece of work to bring to its conclusion, and I commend this bill to the House.

Before I put the vote, I just want to apologise to the Labour chief whip. I omitted to call Lawrence Yule for the remainder of his speech. Fortunately, Michael Wood took the call, but I apologise for that error.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I didn’t want to interrupt the commencement of the vote before, but just reflecting on your apology to me before, I was just wondering whether in fact it should be an apology to the entire nation for missing the opportunity of a speech by Lawrence Yule on that bill.

Well, I will reflect on that.