Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

It’s a great pleasure to move that the Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill does something that’s very simple: it affords the proper protection that the Office of the Ombudsmen should properly have in this country. The way it works at the moment is that it is possible for a Chief Ombudsman to grant the use of the name “Ombudsman” to other organisations who wish to use it. The current wording in the Act actually started a proposition that the name should not be used by other organisations, but there is this discretion, and that discretion has been exercised so that on at least a couple of occasions, private organisations doing investigations similar to what the Government Ombudsman does can use that name.

The difficulty is that there’s been a recent application for use of the name that was declined. That denial or rejection or decline of that application to use the name was then litigated, and it led to a very interesting decision by the Court of Appeal that said that because the decision has been made on earlier occasions for other private organisations to use the name, it would be wrong—effectively, a distortion of the market—if future applications were declined for private organisations to use the name. Therefore, the Chief Ombudsman, on that occasion and on future occasions, really had to consider the fact that other organisations—private organisations with the name—would have some market advantage. Now, that is not in the spirit of the law as it is right now, and so it’s been important for us to clarify that and correct it.

The reality is that the Office of the Ombudsmen has a very sacred origin, and that is that it is a fearless advocate for the citizen when it comes to their relationship with Government departments and agencies. It started in Sweden, and was picked up in other Western democracies and by us back in the 1960s and 1970s. We’ve had it all that time, and it has become a very effective office. We need stern and fearless people in the office—the current Chief Ombudsman is such a person—and we need that to continue. What we don’t want to do is dilute the gravitas associated with this office, and this bill does that.

I know members opposite have been concerned and they think this is trivial. They think that it’s not very important. But in the life of a Parliament—in the three years of the life of a Parliament—a Parliament has to do a number of things. They have to do big transformative things and sometimes they have to do just the little bitty things but that are significant and material and can make a difference. This is one of the little bitty things that it gets to do, and it ought not to detain this House unduly, as it’s been very clearly examined. The committee of the whole House stage lasted for four or five minutes, last night, actually examining the bill, because, actually, it is very simple: it is about protecting the gravitas of the Office of the Ombudsmen. It does that and it does what, I think, the original Act intended to do.

It does one other thing, too. It preserves the existing use of the name by private organisations who have it, so they don’t lose anything, and for the one organisation who has applied to use it and is awaiting determination, it preserves them the right to have that application determined, but, of course, it doesn’t predetermine what the outcome of that application will be. But now it is very clear that the name “Ombudsman” cannot be used willy-nilly by private organisations or any other organisation. It is very clear about the basis in which it can be used.

This is a very good bill. It restores the mana of the Office of the Ombudsmen. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s very rare that I get a chance to speak twice in a short period of time, but it’s my pleasure to stand and take a call on the third reading of this bill. I have got a lot of respect for this Minister, but I never expected this Minister to be wasting the time of this Parliament by introducing this bill. When introduced, this was the fourth bill by this Government in the justice sector. This was totally a waste of time for this Parliament, as it was for the Governance and Administration Committee.

What this bill is doing is just preserving the name of “Ombudsman”, which I think—

💬 Paul Eagle: Sit down now.

Yes, I will sit down. I’ll give you the opportunity to stand up and take a call. The Minister just took less than five minutes to wrap up this bill. So it shows that this bill doesn’t have much content, and that is the reason why we have been, time and time again, complaining about this bill—that this is a waste of time.

This Government, in its first term, is known as a passionate Government, a compelling Government which will be looking after the poor people and child poverty. Nothing is happening on that front, but we are wasting the time of this Parliament by introducing such bills. I think this is totally ridiculous and we should not be doing this. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Taking a call on this at the third reading is an interesting position to be in, because here we are in election year now, and this is the agenda that the Government’s putting forward. Now, I don’t doubt that there are some people who would find this particular piece of legislation to be important, but on the base of it I would have expected from this Government, with their failure to deliver on so many other areas, that they might have prioritised some other pieces of legislation rather than the protection of the name “Ombudsman”.

Now, we’ve seen this Minister bring forward and try to justify exactly why this is important, but in reality this minor change should be something that perhaps we see from Paul Eagle as a member’s bill, for example, put forward, given that he’s quite eagerly interjecting from the other side of the House on the value of this. I’m sure he’s about to take a call after I sit down on this particular topic.

But this piece of legislation, as I mentioned, is largely unnecessary. Surely the Government, in election year, should have other priorities, especially as we’ve seen, time after time, their inability to deliver on areas that they’ve promised throughout last year, which was supposedly the year of delivery. Yet here we are, now in election year, prioritising the Ombudsman (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill. Well, if that’s what this Government is prioritising and looking forward to, I’m sure that they won’t have a long future on that side of the House to worry about what their legislative pipeline might be in the future.

Look, we oppose it. It’s unnecessary. On that basis, I look forward to hearing from someone else perhaps on that side, who might actually make a contribution in regards to this.

It’s a privilege to rise and stand for the first time this year in this House. Ngā mihi o Te Tau Hou ki a tātou, those that are watching the House this afternoon. Bills of this significance, whilst the Opposition might say that they are no longer relevant or aren’t that interesting, they’re actually very critical to the operations of the way that our democracy runs. The Ombudsman is a significant office that we must all ensure is protected and, I guess, upheld.

So I want to commend the work that the Hon Andrew Little has done, and we commend this bill to the House.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.