Offices of Parliament — Address to Governor-General

I move, That a respectful Address be presented to Her Excellency the Governor-General commending to Her Excellency the alterations to the appropriations for the 2021/22 financial year in respect of Vote Audit, Vote Ombudsmen, and Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, and the estimates of expenses and capital injection for the 2022/23 financial year in respect of Vote Audit, Vote Ombudsmen, and Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

This is an annual event for the House of Representatives, and it is probably one of the earliest parts of the Budget process for next year in the sense that the Offices of Parliament are the first to get their budgets, effectively, if you like, confirmed by the House. It concerns the appropriations for our three Officers of Parliament, the Controller and Auditor-General, the Ombudsmen, and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. It sets out any alterations to their appropriations for the current year. For every other Government department or entity, these are done through the Supplementary Estimates process, but the Offices of Parliament are handled differently, through this process.

It also sets out the main appropriations for the three Offices of Parliament. They will ultimately be included in the Appropriation Bill that the Minister of Finance will introduce on Budget day. The process of having Parliament, effectively, confirm what they’re getting before it’s included in the Appropriation Bill maintains the independence of the Offices of Parliament, because it’s not the Government that’s setting the budget or agreeing to the alterations to those budgets for these entities; the Parliament as a whole does that, and it does that before the Budget is issued. So that’s what this motion is all about. It helps to maintain the independence of the Offices of Parliament from the executive.

So, briefly, just to canvass what the proposals involve. They have been examined by the Officers of Parliament Committee, which is chaired by the Speaker, and there has been cross-party agreement to the proposals put forward. The committee’s report does explain in detail the proposals that are being put forward, but I’ll just select a few of the key issues. The report of the Officers of Parliament Committee highlights the pressure that the Auditor-General has been under as a result of COVID-19. It’s meant some of the audits have become increasingly complex and that audit revenue has been affected because there have been fewer staff available to do that work. COVID-19 has also increased the workload of the Ombudsmen. A large number of cases under investigation by the Ombudsmen relate to COVID-19 work. I know that—I’m one of the respondents to many of those cases. I also understand that the work of the Ombudsmen around the Protected Disclosures Act has also increased. The oversight of Oranga Tamariki will result in increased demands, and staff retention and office space have also been concerns, as they have been for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

Finally, the three Offices of Parliament continue to provide excellent value for money, and they make a really important contribution to New Zealand’s democratic systems of Government.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Motion agreed to and Address adopted.