Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call in relation to supporting the Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill. It’s not something that’s going to take a lot of time to discuss, and we’ve gone through it at great length. The sense and sensibility behind the support for this bill—[Interruption] Sense and sensibility; they should make a movie out of Sense and Sensibility, yeah.

💬 Chris Penk: Hey, Pride and prejudice is your party’s normal thing.

Yeah, it’s a bit like Pride and Prejudice. It is a simple fact that the Ombudsman’s role plays a very important role in society, and if we don’t give the certain protections that are required to protect the role of the Ombudsman, then what you can have is a bastardisation of the term “Ombudsman”, as we’ve seen in other countries. I think, just to name one ombudsman in Australia, they have the bee and honey Ombudsman, and you really could go down a very long and winding rabbit hole if we don’t put an end to some of this to protect the role and the independent statutory authority that they are, similar to a judiciary. They are Offices of Parliament where, where there is a complaint or an issue, people can contact the Ombudsman, they can talk about the problem, and the Ombudsman has the power to try and resolve or come up with a solution that people put forward, whether it be legislative or otherwise.

Currently, under the Ombudsmen’s rules, they do have the power to object to a person applying to use the term Ombudsman, and there are a number of cases where permission has been given to use it. However, it takes a lot of resource, financial and a lot of time resource, to defend some of the applications that are coming through, and this bill, essentially, enables the Ombudsman to unequivocally oppose some of these protections of its name. We think that this is an important step to ensure the future of the role that the Ombudsman plays, and the very important role that they play in our society, and that is why we will be continuing to support this through the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill is not worth the paper that it’s written on, which is just as well because there’s not much of that. Only two pages, admittedly printed on both sides of the paper, but the first bit’s blank—notwithstanding my notes, which is the best bit about it. Lots of blank space in there; there really isn’t much to it, much like the Government’s programme in this space. Even part of the content is repeating the title of the bill—well, that’s a sort of a standard format, so fair enough. But it goes on to say, you know, “the principal Acts”—well, that much is implied in the name of the bill. There really isn’t much going on here at all.

This is the legislative equivalent of telling a child a story that goes, “Once upon a time, the end.” There is actually, once you go past the preamble, no amble, let alone post amble. The substance of it, as much as there is any, is protection of name, and it goes on to say something very much like if you are not an ombudsman, then you may not call yourself an ombudsman. It’s about as meaningful as saying that if you’re not Elvis Presley, you can’t claim to be. But at least in that case there’d at least be another provision saying that it will be an offence to step on one’s blue suede shoes.

So the only thing that’s actually fine about this bill is the word “fine”: a thousand bucks is the penalty to solve this supposedly great problem that stalks our land. I think that’s an indication as much as anything of the pointlessness of it.

As such, the National Party doesn’t support this bill. There’s very little point in doing so. There’s no substance. I’d say it’s a big fat waste of time, but, really, it’s actually a very thin waste of time.

I call Chlöe Swarbrick.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. Madam Speaker, a pleasure to rise and speak in support on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand for a brief contribution.

My colleague across the House, Chris Penk, made quite a lengthy one all out of his complaints about how brief this legislation was. And I must say that the opposition that the National Party is bringing to this legislation seems very much to be just opposition for the sake of opposition.

And, if I may, we are talking about the Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill. It’s probably worthwhile for those listeners or viewers at home to have an understanding of what an Ombudsman actually is, because that is the point that we are trying to address here in this legislation. It’s defined—by way of a quick google—as, and I quote, “an official appointed to investigate individuals’ complaints against a company or organisation, especially a public authority”. And that latter part of the definition is actually incredibly important—

💬 Hon Clare Curran: It’s Swedish.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —when we are talking about—it’s Swedish, the term, my colleague the Hon Clare Curran says, and I will take that advice on board and add that to the Hansard for the sake of the public record. But that latter part of that definition is incredibly critical, because what we are talking about here is certain individuals with certain expertise having the ability to investigate and hold to account other officials and official entities.

For that very reason, the Greens are proud to support the Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill, and I’d love to hear an actual substantive reason why the National Party opposes it.

OK, thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a privilege to take a very short call on this bill, the Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill. I’m not going to take much time. I’m just going to say that this must be the greatest achievement of Andrew Little’s time as Minister of Justice—to be able to get this bill through Parliament—the greatest achievement in protecting the title of Ombudsmen. It is a solution looking for a problem. It’s a vanity project which he has long been wanting to do and now he’s managed to make his greatest achievement. The National Party doesn’t support this bill. We oppose his vanity project tonight.

OK?

💬 Lawrence Yule: I’ll have another go.

💬 Hon Member: Wa-hey!

Oh!

💬 Lawrence Yule: Well, I was waiting for somebody from the other side, Madam Speaker.

Never wait for someone from the other side. I call Lawrence Yule.

This bill is so not needed. The Ombudsman has an important role to play in New Zealand and for anybody in New Zealand that has had to deal with the Official Information Act or to understand a whole lot of things, including—I might say, the Ombudsman, when he recently came to the select committee, was talking about investigating, effectively, the drugging of people in eldercare facilities. So the office does a lot of serious things, not just investigating Official Information Act requests.

Now, the real issue here is it was claimed that his office would somehow be diminished if, in fact, we set up a whole lot of Ombudsmen. But there is only one Ombudsman that reports to this Parliament. There is only one Ombudsman that covers all the big issues about transparency, has a lot of say on things, and for that reason it’s a ridiculous waste of time, really, for us to bring in a piece of legislation, as my friend Mr Chris Penk said, that was written on half a piece of paper, and I’d say it serves no substantive purpose.

We in this Parliament know what the Ombudsman does. It’s an Office of Parliament. And for that reason, we oppose this bill.