Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) : As I said last night when this debate started, Labour will be supporting the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill at its first reading. The bill in its present form was drafted on behalf of the outgoing Labour Government.

It concerned us last night when Sandra Goudie stood up and said that the reason for the bill’s extraordinarily long period at a select committee is so that the committee can investigate whether the powers of private investigators and similar positions of responsibility ought to be considerably enlarged. That is something that the previous Labour Government would have opposed. We do not think there is a case for giving powers to arrest or increased investigative snooping powers to private investigators, any more than there is a case for giving those powers to lay people. They do not need them. There is no mischief to be overturned by changing the law, and overturning the law would erode civil liberties that we ought to guard zealously.

Private investigators, unlike the police, can be pursuing functions that are not being done on behalf of all people through the State. The police are obviously prosecuting crime on behalf of all New Zealanders. They are subject to various controls under the Police Act, and to political controls through this Parliament and through the ballot box. Private investigators are subject to no such controls. They can pursue private vendettas on behalf of private clients. They can pursue politically motivated actions; the police cannot do that. Although we support the bill, we will oppose increases to the powers of private investigators.

AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) : I rise to take a call in support of the first reading of the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill. As we have already heard, this bill will repeal and replace the existing 1974 legislation, which is, of course, the Private Investigators and Security Guards Act. When the operation and sufficiency of that Act was reviewed, a number of areas requiring further work were identified. The bill before us, which was introduced at the end of the previous Parliament, is the result of that work.

In my time this afternoon I will speak directly about the importance of robust legislation in this area, because I believe that shows the necessity to replace the law we have currently with stronger and more effective law. The need for appropriate and effective legislation in this area is, at its heart, recognition of the importance of the safety and security of our people and our information. The professional roles that are regulated by this bill are those entrusted with the care of exactly that—our people and our information.

There are two words that I have been surprised I have not heard more of in this debate so far: “trust” and “reliance”. It is the trust and reliance that we put in these professionals that justifies and, indeed, demands a robust system of regulation that the public can have confidence in. If we consider first the personal security roles covered by this bill—personal guards, security officers, bouncers, crowd controllers, and the like—we see that the importance of those roles and of those who carry them out well is evident from just about any worst-case scenario that could be imagined.

I am sure we are all very well aware of the image of crowd controllers and guards hovering around the fringes of people and events, yet very few of us, I imagine, would be able to recall ever seeing any of them actually put to the task, as it were—except, perhaps, taking down a streaker or two at the rugby or the cricket, which I have certainly seen on occasion. It would not be too difficult to be lulled into thinking that they do not do much and that anyone could do it. I would suggest, though, that nothing could be further from the truth.

The fact that these roles exist, and increasingly so all the time, tells us of the very real risks they guard against, and it tells us what could go wrong if the people employed to do this work do not have the skills, training, or personal characteristics required to be effective in their roles. It is not just about having physical strength and, in the case of catching streakers, a good turn of speed. I would suggest that a fair degree of psychology, behaviour management, discretion, judgment, and self-control are required. The people in these roles have to be relied on to act instinctively yet still appropriately in highly charged, adrenalin-laden situations. Getting that right is not just a matter of chance. It is a matter of careful selection, skills training, and experience.

Through this bill we will have a mechanism to ensure that those who are in such roles are able to meet the threshold criteria. In addition, I will just mention the ability to promulgate codes of conduct by regulation, as I think this is an important part of the bill that will allow us to have a streamlined way of reacting to on-the-job issues as they arise and to set out the behaviour that is expected. Personal security is one of those fields where staff doing their job well, as the vast majority do, are almost invisible, yet if the job is not carried out in the way that it should be, even once, the consequences can be significant. In fact, they can be disastrous.

All members of this House, I am sure, will also understand all too well the importance of the security of our information, which is the other area that this bill caters for. Certainly, in my previous professional role as a lawyer, confidentiality was paramount. As a lawyer, and now as a member of this House, I am, like other members, aware that we are often entrusted with the most personal information about the lives of others or with highly sensitive commercial information.

Although I have no doubt at all that those in professional roles and their staff understand that very well and work extremely hard to maintain that confidentiality, I have always been extremely aware of how vulnerable that confidentiality becomes with regard to our computer security people, our technicians, our secure document storage people, document destruction contractors, and our site security. All those people wander through our places of work, both physically and electronically, and they have access to important and confidential information. Our ability to keep those confidences really rests not just on our own use of that information but also on the ability of those people to maintain the standards of professionalism and responsibility that we trust they have.

We all place exceptional trust in the integrity of those who fill those roles. I do not think it is unreasonable that we should be able to rely on the fact that licensing systems are in place to ensure that suitable training has been undertaken and that the people who are engaged in those roles have the skills and the reputation that we would expect them to have.

The framework was set up under the Private Investigators and Security Guards Act 1974, but in this bill, with the advantage of our ability to review 35-odd years of operation under the existing legislation, we are now able to address existing weaknesses and make sure that the framework is as robust as we want it to be. We can address the shortfalls, and we can encourage our communities to have faith and trust in, and reliance on, the people who carry out such important work.

The types of professionals required to be licensed under this bill hold roles of trust and safety, as I have said. Society has a right to demand standards of conduct from people who hold themselves out as being able to perform these roles. As I mentioned earlier, when these roles are carried out as we expect them to be, we often do not stop to think about what would go wrong if they were not. We do not think about the potential consequences of unqualified or inappropriate people who hold themselves out as doing this work, are engaged in doing this work, and have access to all sorts of situations.

I know that everyone in this House will have heard stories about patrons of bars or clubs being seriously hurt or killed in altercations with bouncers or indeed with other customers. I am sure we have all seen television footage from overseas of people being trampled to death when crowds and riots have got out of control. We all know about, or can imagine, the damage that can be done through identity theft or the improper use of personal or confidential information. These are the very real and very significant risks that this bill addresses.

The other thing I want to mention in relation to bills like this is that the good people in this industry, the vast majority who carry out their roles with the highest degree of integrity and take pride in their work, stand to gain as much as society. Any industry is degraded by the presence of cowboys. Therefore, those who hold themselves out as able to perform those roles with integrity and skill are protected by a bill ensuring that that is the case. We can have faith as a society that the people carrying out those roles have the skills and the training, and that serves to enhance the reputation of the profession as a whole.

I will look for a moment at who is covered by the requirements of this bill, but I will start by considering who is excluded. Just as members on this side of the House want to provide appropriate levels of protection, we certainly have a healthy reticence about putting in place any new compliance regimes where they are not justified or where any perceived benefits are likely to be outweighed by corresponding costs. Certainly, volunteers, neighbourhood patrols, community watch groups, and the like, who give up their spare time to make their communities safer, will not be put through hoops. They will not have to fill out forms and be approved. Equally, our policemen and policewomen, our Department of Corrections staff, and other Crown employees will not need to prove themselves on several separate occasions.

This bill will not mean that in-house security provided in an employment relationship has to be licensed, with the exception of crowd controllers. I want to comment on that for a moment because I think there is an important reason for that distinction. If employers employ their own in-house security staff, then the risk is theirs, and if they choose to employ inappropriate people, then so be it. But when crowd control staff are employed, the risk is the crowd’s. That is why we are entitled to make that distinction and say that crowd control staff, employed or not, should have to be licensed so that the crowd can have faith in their competence.

I acknowledge the Hon Clayton Cosgrove and Mr Ron Mark for their work on the development of the bill. I would like to thank the Hon Richard Worth for his role in making sure that this bill is progressed, after three reviews this millennium—there were three reviews but nothing happened. The bill was finally brought to the House at the end of the last parliamentary term, but it is the Hon Dr Richard Worth who brought it to the House. I support the first reading, and I am pleased to commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) : I rise in support of the first reading of the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill. The Labour Party supports this bill—in fact, it was introduced by the previous Labour Government on 11 September 2008. This bill is yet another introduced by the previous Labour Government that the National Government is progressing. I congratulate the National Government on progressing all of the bills that the previous Labour Government—the very diligent and hard-working Labour Government—left on the Order Paper. I am looking forward to seeing some new ideas and new bills from this new National Government. National has had 6 months to come up with some ideas, and we are still waiting to see what it might come up with.

This bill is very important. The aims of the bill are to prevent certain people from either running businesses or working in various roles in the industry, to ensure that the participants in the industry have at least a minimum level of appropriate training, to require industry participants to comply with appropriate rules of conduct, to prescribe penalties for offences against the Act, and to ensure the effective and efficient administration and enforcement of the Act.

Labour introduced this bill to ensure that there are suitable checks and balances for the private security industry, which has broadened in scope and responsibilities in recent years. We have seen some pretty dodgy cases of private investigators in recent years, and I refer in particular to a case that will be well known to the House, although it occurred before my time here. It is the case of the private investigators engaged by the Exclusive Brethren, in concert with the National Party, to investigate senior Labour Party figures in order to gather dirt to smear the then Labour Government. I found it ironic to listen to National Government members heaping praise on Helen Clark during the last House sitting week—the week that she gave her valedictory speech—when those members spent years trawling around with their Exclusive Brethren mates trying to find any piece of dirt they could. They were aided and abetted by dodgy private investigators, who were paid for by the Exclusive Brethren, with the knowledge and support of the National Party, in order to smear the previous Labour Government. Is it not ironic that National members are now supporting a bill that cleans up an industry that has done so much for them and so much to get them into their position in Government now?

One might think that the National Party has turned over a new leaf, that its members have left their Exclusive Brethren days behind, and that they have forgotten about the fact that John Key cosied up to the Exclusive Brethren. There is TV footage of him cosying up to the Exclusive Brethren, but National members have forgotten about that. They have turned a new page. They are in Government now; they are going to clean up their act. They are going to leave behind their days of digging dirt and smearing Labour politicians. But what did we see only yesterday? National is so desperate about Mt Albert that the National research unit was trawling around in order to find dirt on a person who may be a Labour Party candidate. National is so desperate to exceed expectations that before the Labour Party candidate has even been selected, National members are already digging for dirt against the candidate. They are up to the same dirty tricks that they were up to when they were aided and abetted by the Exclusive Brethren and the private investigators, who were paid for by the Exclusive Brethren with the knowledge and support of the National Party.

National members want to defame and smear a person who, as Phil Goff said today, has put his life at risk and has done more for humanity—receiving gallantry awards for saving the lives of children—than anybody in the National Party. National members wanted to smear him, so they got their amateur, unregistered private investigators to go out there and dig for dirt to see what they could find. That should not happen. The private investigation industry needs to be cleaned up, and the National Party needs to clean up its act as well. Is it not interesting to contrast those standards? National members are willing to trawl through and try to find any piece of dirt they can on Labour Party politicians, but what about a case in their own backyard where there are serious issues of public transparency and accountability? What are they willing to do about that? They are willing to do nothing.

Is it not ironic that the Hon Dr Richard Worth, who cannot even follow the most basic rules of the Cabinet Manual, is the Minister in charge of a bill that aims to clean up an industry by requiring industry players to comply with appropriate rules of conduct? Let us think about the Cabinet Manual, and whether Dr Worth himself has applied the appropriate rules of conduct for his industry. Has he complied with the appropriate rules of conduct for his industry? The answer to that would be: “No, he has not.” Richard Worth failed to declare to the Prime Minister a serious conflict of interest when he went on his junket around the world. The conflict of interest was revealed on 30 March 2009 when he was caught out travelling to India as a Minister to talk up aviation training in New Zealand, all the while operating as a director of New Zealand Aviation Ltd and holding shares and directorships in the India Trade Group. Let us continue. On 30 March the Prime Minister John Key said that Dr Worth’s actions were stupid and unwise, and that he had given him a bollocking. He said that he did not expect to see Richard Worth’s poor judgment repeated. Already a Minister in Mr Key’s own Government is failing to comply with the appropriate rules of conduct for his industry; this bill seeks to impose rules of conduct on a number of other industries, including the private security industry.

It gets better. On 2 April Dr Worth continued to hold shares in WSD Global Markets, an Indian-focused company, and J P Morgan Indian Investment Trust, despite assurances that he had resigned from “absolutely everything.” Then on 6 April, when John Key was asked whether Dr Worth had no more chances or lifelines, John Key said “Yeah.” It goes on—

Chris Tremain: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that this member is new to the House, and I appreciate that this is a wide-ranging debate, but the member’s speech has to be within the topic of the bill. I believe that the new member is straying far away from the topic of the bill, and I ask you to call him back to the main, substantive part of the bill. Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): The member makes a point. I just make the observation that it is unnecessary for the point of order to relate to the experience of the member—I think it does not add to the substance of it.

CHRIS HIPKINS: Speaking to the point of order—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): I do not need anyone speaking to the point of order, thank you—I am ruling. The point that has been made by the member is valid; I think the member should be talking about the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill. It is fair enough to make some other observations, but that should not be the basis of the substantive part of the member’s speech. The occasional reference to other things is acceptable, but I think that at this stage we have dealt with that matter sufficiently. The member will continue.

CHRIS HIPKINS: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I refer, in particular, to clause 77(e), which allows for the cancellation of a certificate for a potential private investigator, if he or she “has been guilty of misconduct or gross negligence in the course of the business to which the licence relates:”. Of course, that rule is a code of conduct. Were these rules to apply to Cabinet Ministers, Dr Richard Worth could be deemed to have breached them and he could have had his licence revoked. In fact, he could have had his ministerial warrant revoked, were this Government to have any standards of conduct for its Ministers whatsoever—which we know it does not. On 7 April, when Dr Worth failed to disclose that he was a director of WSD Global Markets and its associated company in the Cook Islands, John Key said that he had an extensive discussion with him. John Key had previously said that Dr Worth had no more lifelines and he was on his final warning, yet Dr Worth continued to breach the code of conduct for his profession. This Minister now brings a bill into this House that seeks to impose a code of conduct on other professions, yet he is not willing to abide by the code of conduct for his own profession.

One of the aspects of this bill is about ensuring that private security personnel have appropriate levels of training. There is a question here: did Dr Worth receive appropriate levels of training in conflict of interest issues? Did he receive appropriate training about the conflict of interest criteria in the Cabinet Manual? It would appear that he did not, or, if he did, that he ignored them.

Would Dr Worth pass the vetting process that bouncers will have to go through under this bill? The bill allows the licence authority to weed out people who have serious criminal convictions, or who have been guilty of gross negligence or misconduct in the performance of their duties. We know that Dr Worth has been guilty of gross misconduct as a Minister, yet John Key continues to turn a blind eye to that gross misconduct; he will not do anything about it.

The Private Investigators and Security Guards Act has been largely unchanged since its passage in 1974. It is now outdated, and major reforms are needed. Private security personnel perform a valuable and responsible role in the community, and the risks associated with their work need to be addressed. We need to ensure that appropriate people are working in this sector, who are properly trained, for instance, in dealing with potentially violent situations, for their own protection or the protection of the public safety. Currently, businesses and their staff are required to be licensed if they offer services in security consultancy work—for example, installing burglar alarms—or if they are doing private investigation work. However, there are some serious gaps in the current legislation, and standards among private security businesses and staff vary widely. This bill, introduced by the previous Government, extends the licensing requirements and introduces mandatory training for private security staff, and it will bring New Zealand into line with the United Kingdom and Australia. I am glad that the National Government has picked up this bill in order to raise standards.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) : I stand to support the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill. This bill was introduced by the previous Labour Government, but was left without anything being done. That Government kept introducing bills, but did not have time to pass them. The bill is very important because security personnel have become a very important part of our lives. Security personnel can be seen at large public events and sports events, where they have the huge responsibility of maintaining discipline. As members may have recently seen at one of the cricket matches between India and New Zealand, the public became very rowdy and started throwing bottles on to the grounds; it became a security issue for the players and other officials. Security personnel need proper training so that they can handle such situations, and this bill provides special instructions for them to have special training. As members know, the Rugby World Cup is coming to New Zealand, and we will need to have a lot of tight security during that big event. It is a prestigious event for our country, and we cannot labour that point enough.

This bill will require the following groups of people to hold licences: private investigators, security technicians, security consultants, property guards, and crowd controllers. This bill will stop any Tom, Dick, or Harry from becoming a private investigator, which is what many members opposite claim would happen. These categories of licences can be held by either individuals or public companies. In-house security personnel who are required to provide security directly to their employers do not have to have licences, with the exception of people employed by bars, like bouncers; they will be required to have a licence or a certificate of approval. Security personnel can find themselves in situations where there is a risk of violent physical confrontation. It is in the best interests of both the public and the industry that security personnel are adequately trained and briefed for such situations if they arise.

The bill also requires security personnel to take special training for these purposes. It ensures that there will be better screening and monitoring of individuals who want to enter this industry. It will disqualify any individuals or companies from holding a licence if they have been previously convicted or if an individual wanting to enter the industry has a history of mental health issues. A licensing authority will be established, and it will manage and monitor the industry to enforce the licensing requirements. The cost of the licensing authority will be met through the licensing revenue. The bill intends to reduce the compliance burden, as it requires full renewal of the licence after 5 years. There will be an annual return, with updated information about the licence holder and responsible employees. Licence holders will have to pay an annual fee, but they will not have to go through a full licensing process each year.

This bill will create flexibility in relation to the different types of training that can be imposed on different classes of personnel. The use of regulations will provide the power to impose training, which also creates the flexibility to respond to the changing circumstances and technology. As we know, the technology is changing on an everyday basis, and we need to have security personnel updated through training so that they can maintain the technology. I stand here to support the bill. Thank you.

• Bill read a first time.

Hon Dr RICHARD WORTH (Minister of Internal Affairs) : I move, That the Justice and Electoral Committee consider the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill, and that the committee finally report to the House on or before 30 March 2010.

• Motion agreed to.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) : In speaking to Part 1 of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill in this Committee stage, I first preface my speech with a couple of comments, perhaps as a reminder that the bill before us gives effect to the recommendations of a review held in 2003 of the Protected Disclosures Act 2000. The review found there were delays and also inconsistencies around the legislative procedure of the Act. As well as that, there was confusion—there still is, until we remedy it—about some of the definitions and a general lack of confidence in the protection of a whistleblower’s identity.

If we think about the circumstances under which an individual might need the protection of the Act, we realise that it is not going to be a happy time for that individual. Let us take the example of somebody who works in a Government department, or perhaps a district health board. If that person identifies a degree of wrongdoing on the part of somebody else with that employer, he or she has to go through a considerable degree of soul-searching before being prepared to blow the whistle, as it were. That is not an easy thing for an individual to do, and we know that because history has shown us that sometimes whistleblowers can themselves become victims. So any steps that this Committee takes to improve this legislation can only be good for all of us, but also most particularly for those people who are prepared to stand up and speak out against fraud or wrongdoing when they see it in front of them. I can only reflect—with regret, probably—on the circumstances surrounding the huge fraud that occurred in our Otago District Health Board. If somebody had had the confidence or knowledge to speak out about that fraud, then perhaps the people of Otago might have had more hip operations or cataract operations.

In speaking to Part 1 of the bill, I will refer now to new section 6A, “Technical failure to comply with or refer to Act”, which is inserted by clause 6. When someone is a whistleblower or wishes to speak out about something, that person is not always in a great position to comply fully with the Act. So I am pleased to see, in new section 6A(1), that “A disclosure of information is not prevented from being a protected disclosure of information for the purposes of this Act merely because—” the person does not follow the process correctly.

I will give an example. A person, whom we will call Person A—this is the example given within the bill—is an employee of a certain organisation. The internal procedure for that organisation, if Person A wishes to make a complaint or impart some information, is to go to the organisation’s human resources manager, using a particular form. But in reality a person who has some information to convey may not have a great relationship with the human resources manager, and may not be particularly familiar with, competent in, or happy about filling in forms, so may instead provide the information to the organisation’s chief executive. That does not strictly comply with the procedures under that organisation’s policy, but that person may be otherwise substantially complying with the legislation. So the failure to comply, in those circumstances, is to be regarded as merely technical, and under new section 6A the disclosure will still be “a protected disclosure … for the purposes of this Act”.

If we think back to the situation of somebody who was working in an organisation, particularly a large organisation, we can ask whom that person could turn to. Perhaps he or she had discovered that something was very wrong within that organisation, had done a degree of soul-searching, I am quite sure, and felt that the person to go to—the person with whom he or she felt most comfortable—was the chief executive. Well, so be it—for the purposes of this legislation, the failure to comply will be regarded as being merely technical and the disclosure, as I have mentioned before, will still be treated as a protected disclosure.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) : It is a pleasure to be rising to speak on the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. Funnily enough, it is another bill of the previous Labour Government, after the last one we were discussing. This one is in the name of the Hon David Parker, my excellent colleague. So it is good to see that the National Government has picked up this important bill and is taking it through its stages. We await with interest the new ideas from such up-and-comers as Simon Bridges and Amy Adams—we are waiting for their new ideas to come forward.

This bill is important, and Part 1 deals with its substance. We can just remind ourselves that the purpose of the bill is to ensure that the Protected Disclosures Act works properly, so that those people who are whistleblowers, those who are able to see wrongdoing or corruption, are supported to blow the whistle on those matters and not feel there will be consequences against them or that the process works against them. I think that that is a very laudable goal, and Part 1 outlines the ways in which that will happen.

The timing of this bill is, in fact, perfect; right now plenty of potential whistleblowers are out there in the Public Service. Public servants were told by National in the election campaign that National would cap, not cut, the Public Service. National was going to keep the services that were there under Labour; that was what would happen. But we have seen, consistently, since National came into office, job cuts in the Public Service. We have seen important positions in places like the Inland Revenue Department, the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Justice, and the Tertiary Education Commission cut out by National against its election promise. In the end, the people of New Zealand will suffer, because the services that New Zealanders rely on will be cut. We know that people in those public sector organisations need to be protected, and that is what this bill will do. They need to be protected from a National Government that is on a slash-and-burn exercise. It is under the radar, admittedly, but it is still a slash-and-burn exercise.

I can tell the Committee that plenty of people in the public sector are already blowing the whistle, and this bill will provide them with further protections. But what they are blowing the whistle on is the National Government going through and looking at each department and agency—not looking at the kinds of services it should be providing, but rather looking at whom it can cut out. The National Government is not thinking about what New Zealanders would actually benefit from in terms of public services, but about how it can cut jobs. That is the agenda of the National Government here—to simply reduce the number of people working in the public sector regardless of the services they actually provide. So we need protections for those people. We need protections so they can blow the whistle and point out the kinds of wrongdoing.

It would be interesting to hear a Minister perhaps take a call to tell us whether public servants who see serious wrongdoing in their department—as people’s jobs are cut out, and as people are excluded from their particular roles in Government agencies and ministries—would be covered by legislation like this. It would be an interesting thing to hear a Minister take a call on.

But we know that in public sector agencies from time to time there is a need to address these sorts of concerns; there is a need to blow the whistle. One of the things we learnt from the Protected Disclosures Act in its earlier incarnations was that although it was a good Act, not enough was done to ensure that it could be used properly. In particular—

Jacqui Dean: Under a Labour Government that would have been happening.

GRANT ROBERTSON: It was reviewed, I tell Ms Dean; that is exactly right. It was reviewed by the Labour Government after being brought in, in 2000. It was reviewed in 2003, and it is a good thing to see how an Act goes, how it works. The changes were then brought forward to this House.

One of the most important changes is in the enhancement of the role of the Ombudsmen to provide good information, not only to the people who are blowing the whistle but also to the agencies and departments where those people work. Under new section 6B, to be inserted in the principal Act by clause 6, the Ombudsmen’s role will be extended so that they can provide guidance and information to employees. This is important, because a lot of people do not necessarily know what all the rules are—what serious wrongdoing is, and how they can bring matters forward. In the end, this provision will mean that the Ombudsmen will have the ability both to weed out complaints that perhaps should not be going through under the Protected Disclosures Act and to shed light on those areas where people are unsure and need some reassurance that they can take matters forward. Section 6B does that by enhancing the Ombudsmen’s role. New section 6C, which is also to be inserted by clause 6, also allows the Ombudsmen to request information on the internal procedures of an agency to see whether they are up to scratch.

Simon Bridges: It’s a great section.

GRANT ROBERTSON: It is a great new section, I say to Mr Bridges, because it means that agencies will now be required to have proper internal procedures. People will have to follow those procedures if they are to lay a complaint under this legislation. At the moment, not everybody knows where to find those procedures, or even whether they exist at all. The Ombudsmen can now look into those procedures and ensure that people will have that information.

New section 15B, which is to be inserted by clause 8, further enhances the Ombudsmen’s powers, because it means that they can review and guide investigations. There has been a suggestion that, from time to time, investigations get shuffled around within a department.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) : Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this very important Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. Indeed, Part 1, which we are talking about, is the substantial part. As stated in the commentary, “The bill will give the Ombudsmen a larger guiding, reviewing, and investigating role in relation to disclosures of serious wrongdoing, with the Office of the Ombudsmen facilitating a collaborative cross-agency approach.”

It is very important to realise the genesis of this bill, of how it came about. It amends the 2007 amendment Act, which amended the original Protected Disclosures Act of 2000. I acknowledge here the work of Mary Scholtens QC in reviewing the original Act in 2003; she pointed out that there was limited information available about how the Act was working at the time. I might say that by 2006 only eight cases had been brought, under the Act, into the public arena, and this is probably part of the reason why it needs modifying now. Mary Scholtens said it appeared that the Act had had only limited use, that some of that use had been inappropriate, and that no significant issues were raised by the major employer or employee groups. She went on to say, however, that a number of important themes had emerged, and that it was unlikely the identity of a person making a protected disclosure would remain confidential. That, of course, is of extreme concern. She also said: “It appears to me that where the provisions of the Act have been incorporated into an organisation’s culture of risk management, and at institutions relating to appropriate ethical conduct, the procedures worked well.”

It seems rather rich that the previous speaker, Grant Robertson from the Labour Party, suggested that—

Simon Bridges: He’s not rich.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: No, maybe not—he is a humble man, indeed. The part about it that is rich is the fact that the Labour Government spent so long in getting on to doing something about this issue. Here they were with the Public Disclosures Act in 2000 and the review in 2003, yet it was not until 2007 that this amendment bill was actually brought into the House under the Labour Government.

Hon David Parker: It was a serious bill—a bill that needed serious thought.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Well, we hear the Hon David Parker opposite, but this is a classic example of the languid, lazy Labour Government taking months—years—before it finally gets around to bringing important legislation into the House. This is a classic example. There the bill languished from 2007 and right through 2008. Fortunately, the new National Government, which is absolutely out to make a difference, has taken the bill up with alacrity. Here it is today, and it is a great pleasure to be speaking on it.

The National Government does indeed support this very important amendment bill. We expect that with the better tools provided by this amendment bill, Government agencies should be able to respond in a more coordinated and effective manner, and will be able to hold the Government to account.

It was during the time of the previous Labour Government, of course, that there was the shocking situation in Hawke’s Bay, where Mrs Deborah Houston was unable to successfully raise her case of whistleblowing without being identified. She was acutely aware of the importance of getting this disclosure legislation right, and I guess that this is one of the reasons why it has come before us this evening. Protecting whistleblowers is not just a matter for legislative change; it requires the ongoing operational improvements that are absolutely at the essence of the functioning of this bill. There is no doubt that silence is not in the public interest. The very fact that there were only eight cases until 2006 is a stark reminder of how the previous legislation was just not working.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : It is a pleasure to take a call in the Committee stage of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. It is an excellent bill. As my colleague Grant Robertson said, it was introduced in the name of the wonderful Minister of State Services in the Labour Government, David Parker.

I acknowledge the Government Administration Committee, which considered this bill. For the benefit of the previous speaker, Paul Hutchison, I say that the bill spent some time at the select committee. That committee was chaired by Mr Shane Ardern.

Dr Paul Hutchison: He did his best.

DARIEN FENTON: He did a very good job, and I think he would be fairly insulted to hear the member talking about it languishing. In fact, it took a Labour Government to bring in any sort of protective disclosures in the first place, after what happened in the 1990s to Neil Pugmire at Lake Alice Hospital. It took a Labour Government to do something about that, and to recognise that a climate of fear had developed in the 1990s, and that there was an appalling culture in the public sector where people were afraid to speak out. This amendment bill and the Protected Disclosures Act have an underlying principle of fair and reasonable treatment for those who seek to speak up about serious wrongdoing, and who, in doing so, are potentially putting their jobs at risk.

The issues that gave rise to the original Act are particularly important in today’s circumstances, with the economic downturn. As my colleague Grant Robertson observed, the Government is hell-bent on taking the knife to our Public Service jobs. I particularly want to mention the 6,000 workers in Auckland who work for local government, who are fearful for their jobs, who have enormous uncertainty, and who have a Government that is not following previous examples of rolling them over to be employed by the new local body for a decent period of time so that things can bed in. I think we will see some real fear. I hope they will be brave enough to blow the whistle if corruption emerges, particularly if we have the sort of—

Grant Robertson: What if your job’s going to go?

DARIEN FENTON: Well, that is the problem. That is the thing that really worries me about it. I think it is worth recording again the roll-call of job cuts that we have seen, and the impact that they have on people who have been prepared to speak out: 86 jobs at the Ministry for the Environment, 88 at the Ministry of Justice, 250 at the Inland Revenue Department, up to 500 at the Ministry of Social Development, 22 at the State Services Commission, 32 at the National Library, and 76 at the Tertiary Education Commission. Those job cuts are just the beginning. This Government is just getting started. We should add to that the sinking-lid policies, particularly in the district health boards across New Zealand. The number of hospital administration staff being employed is capped at the level in December 2008. A lot of workers—a lot of whānau—are facing a miserable winter because this Government does not believe that public sector jobs are worth saving.

We have had 120-odd jobs saved in the private sector because of the 9-day working fortnight, and thank goodness for that. It is a good thing those jobs have been saved, and that is thanks to the unions, which negotiated a fair deal for those workers. But around 1,000 jobs in the public sector are not worth saving. They do not qualify for any Government assistance. There is this nonsense about backroom workers—bureaucrats—who are ineffective and do not do anything. The National Party really pushed that throughout the election campaign. It is not fair and it is not right. The Government needs to recognise that people are the most important asset of organisations, and that the skills and knowledge of public sector workers are as much a part of public infrastructure as roads, hospitals, and school buildings are. I want to know where the investment in them is.

Protected disclosures in this environment will be difficult for workers. Speaking up will be frowned upon. When jobs are up for grabs, keeping one’s head down will be the best approach. I am fearful for the Public Service and for New Zealand’s reputation for being No. 1 in the international transparency stakes. I am fearful about where we are heading with our very, very good Public Service, which, after all, is about providing services to the public. It is not about providing jobs for people, though that is important; it is about providing services to the New Zealand public, which needs them even more in this economic climate. That is why Labour supports this bill and the boosting of protections in Part 1. We think it will make it easier for whistleblowers to bring serious wrongdoing to light.

SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) : It is good to take a call in the Committee stage of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill after the impassioned speech by Dr Paul Hutchison on this significant and serious topic, and after what I thought were interesting contributions by Darien Fenton and Grant Robertson. I wondered how Grant would manage to talk about cuts to the bureaucracy in this debate, but he did it well and I admire him for his skill.

Bills like this one are important, and it is important that we have a whistleblowing bill. David Shearer is whistle-blowing right now about what has been happening in the Labour Party and about its secret agenda in relation to the private military. Through him we see the kind of example of what we need to do and why we need to improve laws like this.

It is interesting to look at the background to this legislation. I agree that the primary legislation came in under Labour in 2000. We had a review, led by a very able Queen’s Counsel, to look at what we could do to improve this bill, and now—not under a Labour Government but under a National Government—this amendment bill has been brought in. The bill uses the term “protected disclosures”, which is the term that has been used around the Western World, where similar bills have been introduced. However, as I say, in common parlance we talk about whistle-blowing.

It is important that we improve the primary legislation, because at heart what this bill is saying—and what Part 1 gives effect to—is that in New Zealand we do not want to live in some sort of Soviet-style satellite State where there is a climate of fear. I know that Chris Hipkins would quite like to have that situation in Rimutaka, but we do not like that in the National Party. We do not want a Soviet-style satellite State; we want things to be open, and we want things to be exposed to light. That is why we are serious about improving the legislation.

This bill does a couple of things. In essence, it enhances the role of the Ombudsman. I am a big fan of the Office of the Ombudsman; I think that office provides a good solution to many issues of Government, and I will come back to how the bill enhances that role, if I have time. The second thing this bill does very well is that it makes it easier for whistleblowers to speak out and for organisations to investigate what has gone on following disclosures by whistleblowers.

In Part 1, where the substance of this bill is, we see that things are made easier for whistleblowers through provisions such as clause 5 and new sections 6A and 6B. I will not take Committee members through the detail, but they provide—

Grant Robertson: Go on!

SIMON BRIDGES: Would members like me to?

Grant Robertson: Why not.

SIMON BRIDGES: All right. Clause 5(2) add new section 6(3), which states: “If an employee of an organisation believes on reasonable grounds that the information he or she discloses is about serious wrongdoing in or by that organisation but the belief is mistaken,” that employee will nevertheless be protected. That is a good thing; that is reasonable. Where whistleblowers are acting in good faith but are wrong, they will be protected if they have been doing it in a reasonable way. That is right. I think everyone in this Chamber would say that is right.

New section 6A, which my colleague Jacqui Dean has talked about, states that technical failures to comply with the Act will not necessarily mean that the whistleblower is hung out to dry. A very good example is given in new section 6A(1)(b), which refers to “Person A” being an employee of “Organisation B” and talks about the internal procedures for receiving and dealing with information about serious wrongdoing. Although Person A does not comply with those procedures to the letter of the law in the example provided, the failure is technical. Under this bill that person will be protected, and I think that is absolutely right. New section 6A(2) backs up what we see at the end of the bill as well, in that there is no contracting out of this legislation. That is a good thing.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) : Fundamentally, the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill is about accountability and the abuse of power, and I think we want to consider that for a moment. Jacqui Dean talked just before about the Otago District Health Board; I thought that was a really good example of where some serious wrongdoing was uncovered and, because it was uncovered, was able to be dealt with. One of the important aspects of the protected disclosures legislation is that the people who do that kind of uncovering of wrongdoing can be protected and do not lose their jobs. What is really important too, of course, is that the people who then fix up the mess created by that do not get sacked, as well. That was certainly not so in the case with the Otago District Health Board, which Jacqui Dean mentioned, because the chairperson who then intervened and cleaned up the mess was sacked for political reasons by the current Minister of Health. That person did not get due fair process but was simply sacked, because the new Minister of Health wanted to swagger around to try to prove the point that he was in charge of things.

I would also like to talk a little bit about some of the other people who might be covered by this legislation. It is always good to put these things in a context, so I will talk—hypothetically—about a staff member in a Minister’s office who was concerned about serious wrongdoing within that office. For example, if the staff member had uncovered and had knowledge of the fact that the Minister had failed to declare a shareholding in a business he or she was using his or her ministerial capacity to promote, we would want to ensure that the person who disclosed that had some protection. If the staff member wanted to disclose the fact that the Minister had used a diplomatic passport to travel overseas to promote a business in which he or she had a financial interest, we would want the person who disclosed that to be protected. If the staff member wanted to use the legislation in order to disclose that the Minister had failed to disclose that companies he or she was associated with were being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office, we would want the staff member to be protected. If the staff member wanted to use the protected disclosures legislation to disclose that the Minister he or she worked for was, in fact, in charge of a bill that altered the powers of a local authority for which that Minister had been identified as the lead legal adviser, we would want that staff member to be protected if he or she decided to disclose that. Ultimately, this legislation is about power, the abuse of power, and protecting people who disclose the abuse of power—and those who abuse power include Ministers.

I want to alert members to some of the changes that this bill puts in place. Under clause 4(2), new paragraph (g) is added to section 3 of the Act to extend the definition of an “employee” to be someone who works “as a volunteer without reward or expectation of reward for that work.” A good example of that would be parliamentary interns. They fit that definition: they work in a Minister’s office “as a volunteer without reward or expectation of reward for that work.”, and they see an awful lot. So they would be in a position to disclose information about the gross misuse and abuse of power by a Minister of the Crown. This legislation extends the protection of the Protected Disclosures Act to them, and that is something I think we should be in favour of because ultimately there has to be high standards of conduct within the Public Service.

It is importance for public confidence in the Public Service that the public knows there are high standards of conduct in the Public Service, but is it not regrettable that we cannot say that about the Ministers in this Government at this present point in time?

Even though it has been disclosed through one means or another that there has been serious misconduct by a Minister in this Government, still the Prime Minister continues to refuse to do something about it. He has called the Minister “stupid” in public. He has given him a bollocking. He has said that the Minister has no more lifelines and no more chances, yet every time there is another revelation about what that Minister is involved with, the Minister continues to hold his ministerial warrant, and he is given one final warning and then another “final” warning.

We want to ensure that anybody who has information about that kind of thing—whether he or she works in a Minister’s office as a staff member, a volunteer, or an intern—should be able to make a protected disclosure without fear of retribution or reprimand. I think that is a very important part of this legislation. This bill was introduced by the previous Labour Government so of course we will be supporting it.

CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) : It is a pleasure to speak on the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. I will pick up on some of the comments of the previous speaker but, first, will talk about the bill in the context of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. As in previous speeches of mine on various issues, I have acknowledged, and again salute, a woman known as Ms Deborah Houston, who is known as the whistleblower in her involvement with the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. I have talked of the difficulties she has had and her allegations of retaliation, the restructuring out of her job, and the restructuring of departments. All have helped lead to the bill we have before us today.

I will be speaking around clause 6 in relation to the role of the Ombudsmen. I just note that the whistleblower known as Ms Deborah Houston has actually received an apology. I would like to quote from the Dominion Post:“The whistleblower in the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board conflicts of interest saga has finally received an apology from the board’s chief executive.” I acknowledge the outgoing chief executive for doing that, although he is no longer with the board. That fact puts it in context, after this particular person did the whistle-blowing. At the meeting this person identified herself as the whistleblower, and therein lies all the problems around communications, and maybe confusion of process in that case. Without relitigating the issue, which took probably almost a year to resolve, I can tell members that the whistleblower contacted the board chairman, under the Protected Disclosures Act, over allegations that she had made on a conflict of interest issue, and that allegation led to a lengthy Ministry of Health investigation, which I have alluded to. I just note that the elected members of the board were recently reappointed in a governance capacity.

I would like to pick up on one point, and will quote shortly from a speech made by Deborah Houston to the Australasian Compliance Institute entitled “Protection for Whistleblowers: What needs to be done?”. I will later ask for leave of the House to table the document, because this matter is serious. The previous speaker tried to get a bit clever about the Otago District Health Board, but this person has suffered emotional, financial, and reputational distress because of—to put it gently—unclear, shall we say, procedures in our hospital in Hawke’s Bay in regard to the board and some senior management around how protected disclosures should work.

Let me read out the conclusion of her speech: “What happened to me and what happened to the board of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board should never happen again. It is incumbent upon the Crown to do the right thing by its employees, its elected public officials, and, of course, its ministerial appointees. The public expects no less.” I would be incredibly surprised if anyone in this Chamber disagreed with that statement. It continues: “When all the facts are looked at, I believe it is clear that the right thing was not done by me or, more latterly, by the board. I have continued to fight for accountability for what has been done. I have done so because I believe that the public administration in New Zealand must be honest, must be transparent, and that its tradition of political neutrality must be maintained.” That speech was made on 21 August 2008; the issue began in January 2006. The speech was made more than 2 years after that person started the ball rolling and, as an individual, fought against a bureaucratic machine to effect change. That change we see in the bill before the House right now. I do not want to relitigate the issue; we have all moved on—

Hon Darren Hughes: I bet you don’t!

CRAIG FOSS: —but I will, if the member wants me to, because the man who said he was running the show actually did a lot of damage to Labour. He is now on Labour’s front bench. I am trying to respectfully talk about the person who actually suffered. That is why this bill is before us today, so that people do not innocently suffer because of the misinterpretation of previous legislation.

Hon Darren Hughes: Then tell the truth.

CRAIG FOSS: I can be gentle or I can go hard. I will try to go as gently as I possibly can, because we have all moved on, but if those members want me to, I will go hard. I will be quite interested to see some of the other combatants in this debate.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) : I want to return to where we were slightly earlier in the debate, when talking about the Ombudsmen’s increased powers. In my earlier call I was talking about the Ombudsmen’s ability to review an investigation or guide an investigation that a public sector agency had under way. Under section 15A, inserted by clause 8 of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill, the Ombudsmen can take over an investigation in a department. They can take over that investigation if they believe, for instance, that the authority or the organisation has decided not to investigate the matter for some reason, or it has decided that it cannot progress it in a reasonable time period, or because the Ombudsmen do not believe that the agency is actually capable of doing that investigation because it is so closely aligned with them.

It is probably helpful at this time to take an example of what that might be. What is the situation where that would occur? Could it be the case of an official who is working away diligently on a proposal that he or she has been told to work on—for example, a cycleway, because there are proposals about things such as cycleways—and has been told that that it is important and that it came from a significant event like the Job Summit? So the person has been working away on it and has been putting forward ideas, and then he or she finds out, all of a sudden, that the other people who have been working on the cycleway idea are not there any more; they have gone, because apparently the proposal is not going to be funded this year, next year, or the year after. Those people have gone, those jobs have gone, and the people are out of the way. That official might be very concerned about what is going on there—what kind of wrongdoing has been undertaken in that department. The official has the right to raise a complaint, and we know that the Office of the Ombudsmen is now empowered to be able to say that the office will take over the investigation because that action is not appropriate.

It just gives us cause for thought at this time to think about the kind of staffing that the Office of the Ombudsmen will require to be able to implement this bill. Four or five key new tasks are being given to the Office of the Ombudsmen and they are the ability to take over an investigation, the ability to look into people’s internal procedures on these issues, and the need to provide information to people who wish to be whistleblowers. That is a lot of extra work. I think National members might want to take a call and tell us whether the funding for the Office of the Ombudsmen will be protected under this Government. Over the last few months we have consistently seen cuts into the Public Service, cuts into agencies that we would not think would be taken down—like the Inland Revenue Department. If people think they have had problems getting hold of staff in that department in the past, it will get worse under the National Government. We know that 250 staff will be cut from the Inland Revenue Department.

Who is to say there will not be staff cut from the Office of the Ombudsmen? That office has been given an increased role under this bill, so one would think there would be no way that staff numbers in the Office of the Ombudsmen could be cut. But the Inland Revenue Department was given an increased role. The department has been asked to look after tax changes, changes to KiwiSaver, and a new independent earner rebate. We would think it would need staff. But, no! The National Government came into power, and those 250 staff were told: “Out the door!”, even though the department is doing the significant and important work that ordinary taxpayers expect it to do and from which they expect to receive good services.

The Office of the Ombudsmen, which has increased roles under this bill, is the kind of agency that we would expect to be funded properly. Part 1 covers the extensions to the role of the Office of the Ombudsmen and we would expect the office to be funded properly. But we have no guarantee from this National Government that it will fund the office properly. Perhaps a speaker on the other side of the Chamber would like to take a call and guarantee that the Office of the Ombudsmen will receive the additional resources that it needs to fulfil its obligations, which are outlined in Part 1. We have not seen any commitment from the National Government to adequately fund those kinds of key public services.

We remind ourselves again that the Ombudsmen can take over an investigation. I think that is an important point, because a lot of Public Service officials will be worried about their jobs under this Government—worried that their jobs will be cut. Will they be encouraged, in that environment, to blow the whistle? If they uncover a wrongdoing will they be encouraged to say they want to do something about that? We have no guarantee of that. It is vitally important that the Ombudsmen can move in where an employee is concerned about his or her ability to blow the whistle—and they will be concerned in the environment that the National Government is creating. The Ombudsmen’s enhanced powers are important, they are significant, and they must be resourced, because the Office of the Ombudsmen is a key part of our democracy. We have seen other key parts of the Public Service run down—the Inland Revenue Department, the Ministry of Social Development. It cannot happen to the Office of the Ombudsmen, and we need a guarantee that the Ombudsmen will have the resources to implement the additional powers they will have under Part 1.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) : In this Committee stage of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill, it is appropriate that we give due consideration to the extended powers and authority of the Office of the Ombudsmen because it underpins the credibility and integrity of the amendment bill. The Office of the Ombudsmen is an Office of Parliament that is highly regarded, and it has an independence that will help the procedures of the amendment bill, as it is put into the body of the Act, to work more effectively.

We have talked a lot about the amendments. I think it is appropriate that we go back a little bit and look at what the Act currently says in section 7—the point that Jacqui Dean made when she spoke of the accuracy that a person had to follow in making a disclosure. I direct members’ attention to section 7 of the Protected Disclosures Act 2000, which states: “Disclosure must be made in accordance with internal procedures”. Just by the nature of that, it challenges us as to how accurate we have to be in making disclosures. Section 7(1) states: “An employee must disclose information in the manner provided by internal procedures established by and published in the organisation, or the relevant part of the organisation, for receiving and dealing with information about serious wrongdoing.” I draw the attention of the Chamber to that, as that in itself makes it very difficult to cross every “t” and dot every “i” and to clear the hurdles and hoops that are placed in the way of a person who could be a whistleblower. In technical situations, section 6A of the bill, inserted by clause 6, is appropriate. A person has to proceed with a reasonable degree of accuracy—roughly in accord with the process. We do not want to get bogged down in absolute detail. If the procedures say that we should report to the human resources manager but we actually choose to go to the chief executive officer, then that should suffice. In their role, the Ombudsmen are there to oversee the process and I think we can take great comfort from that.

National supported the review that highlighted such points, because, in effect, it is about the smooth running of that process. The eight cases where the Act had been previously used underlined the officious approach that the existing Act has. The role of the Ombudsmen to walk alongside and support a person—who would be, for all good intents and purposes, a whistleblower—is highly appropriate. Not rushing on too far with the intricacies of how it would work in the workplace but looking just at the very mechanics of it, I believe the amendments are appropriate. It will help the public to have greater confidence in the Public Service, and this is what it is all about. Our democracy is very often underpinned by the independence of the Office of the Ombudsmen, and that is reassuring. Silence is not in the public interest when it comes to the functioning of our Public Service.

When we look at this Act, we see that the early parts of it are very succinct and clear. But this bill adds to the smooth running of the process around declaring information, ensuring that New Zealand’s democracy is upheld, and ensuring that there is clarity and transparency in the various organisations that we so depend on. We congratulate the Government Administration Committee on the hard work it has put in, in bringing this bill forward. It will sit comfortably inside the Act, and it will enhance the Act to progress matters around transparency. We have heartfelt sympathy for the person who had the courage to blow the whistle on the situation that occurred in the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board.

SUE MORONEY (Labour) : In speaking to the Committee stage of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill, I am reminded by Part 1 that we are amending the principal Act brought in in 2000. If we reflect on why it came in at the time it is interesting to note that it is often the health sector where great use is made of this particular Act. I cannot remember the very brave man’s name; it used to be etched on my memory. [Interruption] Neil Pugmire—I knew one of my colleagues would bring the name forward—was a very brave mental health nurse, I believe from Canterbury or somewhere—[Interruption]—from Wanganui who, unfortunately, did not have the protection of this legislation, but he is the man who brought this gap in legislation to the attention of this House.

What happened in 2000, and what probably happened during the course of 1999—because the legislation was enacted in 2000—was that Neil Pugmire had tried to use all of the processes available to him within his hospital setting to raise concerns about the lack of resources, and the lack of proper attention and care, being given to mental health patients in Wanganui at the time. He was doing that using his advocacy role as a health professional as we would all want him to do—as all health professionals are educated and trained to do when they go through their training. What did he get for using his advocacy role as we would want him to do? He lost his job. He was sacked because when the internal processes did not give him a result and his issues were not being heard, he dared to take the matter further and alerted authorities over and above the hospital board about the concerns that he was raising. He went public with his concerns about how mental health patients were being treated at the time. He got sacked because there was no such legislation in 1999 that protected his interests, even though he had not only the right but the responsibility as a health professional to advocate for the patients and the people he was seeing, and to require a better service for them.

In 2000 the incoming Labour Government brought in the Protected Disclosures Act as we now know it. It is timely that some 8 or 9 years later we are reflecting again on this legislation, because that was the first time we had had such a protection in law. We have discovered through the passage of time that the Act does need amending, and Part 1 enhances the role of the Ombudsmen. I think it is timely for another reason, not only because approximately 9 years have elapsed since this legislation was first drafted but also because in 2009 I am certain there is something of a climate of fear, particularly among the public service in New Zealand. Therefore, strengthening the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill, at a time when public servants fear for their jobs, is important. Public servants know that the knife is out for their positions, and such a climate must make it extremely difficult for them to address any issues that concern them. There is a climate of fear. We know that public service jobs are under the knife, and that must make it exceptionally difficult for public servants to raise any concerns that they might have.

Many of my colleagues have raised very good examples of the sort of work undertaken by public servants at the moment. Those public servants may have some concerns about that work. They may not be able to do the work on the cycleway because the Minister of Finance has said that there is no money available for it this year, next year, or the year after that. So a public servant required to do work on that piece of work might have concerns that he or she wants to raise. My other colleagues have raised many other examples. It is very timely that we look again to the gaps that are in the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill—very timely in the current environment.

I want to speak very briefly on how Part 1 enhances the role of the Ombudsman. The bill will give the Ombudsman the ability to review an employer’s protected disclosures procedure.

MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) : I am delighted to rise and take a call in the Committee stage of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. I want to focus in particular on Part 1, but before I do that, I will just take a broader perspective on the reasons for the amendments as contained in Part 1. The amendments in Part 1 to the principal Act, the Protected Disclosures Act, are intended to provide some improvements to the original legislation.

As we know, the original Act was passed by the previous Labour Government in 2000. At that time the person who precipitated that legislation was a fellow by the name of Neil Pugmire, as the previous speaker, Sue Moroney, has said. Mr Pugmire was a nurse at Lake Alice Hospital. He expressed concern to management over the release of dangerous psychiatric patients into the community. He was suspended and later dismissed for his actions. It is very interesting to think that the person who precipitated the legislation, Mr Neil Pugmire, stated in the Sunday Star-Times in December 2000 that even the new law passed then would not be enough to protect employee whistleblowers from having their careers tainted. So it was pretty clear right from the outset that there were some flaws in the legislation that the Labour Government passed, and a review was commenced by that same Government in 2003.

The very eminent Queen’s Counsel Mary Scholtens conducted a considered and thoughtful review that highlighted the need for improvements. That review was 6 years ago. It has taken 6 years to take the very good ideas that Ms Scholtens’ review highlighted, draft them into the bill, introduce it to the House, send it to the Government Administration Committee, have the committee report back to the House, and come to the position that we are in now—6 long years. Such is the importance that the languishing, lazy, languid, long out-of-touch Labour Government placed on that amendment.

Frankly, I am amazed that the Labour Opposition should raise the issues surrounding the $17.8 million fraud at the Otago District Health Board in the context of this debate. The fraud was described in the House as the single largest employee fraud in State sector history. I am advised that not only was it the single largest fraud in State sector history but also it was the single largest employee fraud in any organisation at any time in this country. So the Labour Opposition is using, to make a point, a case where, during the 5 long years of the single biggest employee fraud in this country, no one blew the whistle. Not only that but also it appears that many people were asleep with the whistles in their mouths.

As we know, the genesis of this legislation came out of the health care setting. In that context many health employees are required to raise issues of considerable patient concern, and, quite rightly, they need to be able to do that in an environment where they can be protected from the consequences of doing so. I think we have seen in society a move towards that framework. We have a number of pieces of legislation that do that, not the least of which is the Health and Disability Commissioner Act.

I will also touch on a couple of other examples where, in a health care setting, people have been required to blow the whistle, at their peril. A general practitioner in Southland was contacted by the police in 1995 and asked whether he believed his patient should hold a firearms licence. The reply from the doctor was a brief note saying that he did not think so. Three things happened subsequently. The person did not get his firearms licence, but the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Committee formally censured the doctor for breaching privacy. The fellow who was the subject of the application went on to be jailed for 2 years on a charge that was scaled down from attempted murder to one of causing grievous bodily harm. There are a number of other examples where people have, in the best interests of the people they advocate for, raised issues and been punished for them.

I think the intent of the Act as it was passed is a very good one. These amendments need to be made to improve that legislation. I look forward to that happening.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: In accordance with the decision of the Business Committee for the Hon Dr Michael Cullen to make his valedictory statement, I suspend the Committee of the whole House for the Speaker to resume the Chair.

• Debate suspended.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) : I want to refer to an aspect of Part 1 that I have not spoken about yet in this debate.

Colin King: You haven’t spoken about any of it!

GRANT ROBERTSON: I know that my colleagues on the other side of the Chamber will be surprised that there is an aspect of Part 1 that I have not yet talked about, but I want to talk about clause 4, “Interpretation”, in which the definition of “employee” is changed. This is a very important change, because it extends the protections provided under the Protected Disclosures Act to a couple of other classes of people. I will look at some examples of the kinds of people who might now have the protections of this legislation extended to them.

Firstly, the definition of “public official” has been changed in clause 4(4) to read: “public official means a person who is an employee of a public sector organisation”. It is a wide definition and covers many, many people. I had cause to reflect, over the dinner break, on whether that definition would cover somebody who is employed in one of the independent commissions that help to support our processes of government. Those commissions are, indeed, public sector organisations by most definitions. In particular, I was thinking of the Human Rights Commission or, indeed, the Race Relations Commissioner.

That brings us back to the concern raised by a number of members on this side of the Chamber about how people will feel in the climate of fear that the National Government is beginning to create in the Public Service. It is a climate of fear borne of people being worried that their jobs are on the line. How many jobs in the public sector are on the line under the National Government? That climate of fear means that people will not want to speak out. They will not want to blow the whistle on something, in case their job is gone and they are chopped off.

We have recently seen the interesting example of an independent public sector official, Joris de Bres, who was in Geneva at the UN conference on racism. Mr de Bres is an independent commissioner who, along with race relations commissioners from all over the world, went to that important conference. He is a public official and, obviously, has a lot of important things to say about an important issue like racism.

Hon Member: Independently.

GRANT ROBERTSON: Independently, as my colleague says. Mr de Bres made some comments about what he felt were the reasons why New Zealand was not represented there. He made those comments in his independent position and suggested that perhaps New Zealand was simply slavishly following behind other countries, rather than taking an independent stance. He was immediately subjected to a tirade of abuse from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully, who accused him of all manner of things—including, I might say, of being a Labour Party hack. Mr McCully made all kinds of suggestions about Mr de Bres’ independence. It was an outrageous attack of bullying by the Minister, and we have to wonder, when Mr de Bres and others are faced with this kind of bullying simply for expressing themselves, how much confidence we can have that the people who now have the protections of this legislation extended to them will continue to be looked after.

This emphasises once again the important role of the Office of the Ombudsmen, which is another independent office in our system that can now take over investigations. It may well be that Mr de Bres and other officials who feel they have something to talk about will now, under this law, have to make use of the Ombudsmen. Clearly, they can have no confidence that the National Government sees them in an independent light. It is shameful that Mr McCully took it upon himself to attack Joris de Bres in that way. Mr de Bres is an independent official who had every right to be at that conference.

The other class of employees that is being brought under the Act is employees who work for organisations as volunteers without reward or the expectation of reward for that work. That definition extends things out quite a long way. My colleague Chris Hipkins talked earlier on about the example of somebody who works as an intern. Clause 4(1) will also extend the provision to people who are board members of some organisations, as well. Clearly, board membership is an important role, because once again we have seen the National Government politicise the board appointments process. We have seen the National Government take people off boards and appoint some of its own people. That can be an issue of significant concern. If people feel that their job on a board is under threat, are they likely to be able to disclose a problem they see? They will not—they will be intimidated. The extension of this provision is important, because those people now have additional protections. But can we have confidence that they will be protected? Under this Government we cannot have confidence that they will be protected. The only thing I can say is that this bill, which was drafted by the Labour Government—

PESETA SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie) : I speak in support of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. I will revert to the bill and not drift off on to unrelated and irrelevant matters such as those the Opposition raised. The bill is designed to build on the current purpose of the principal Act, which is in place to promote public interest in different ways. There are two primary ways: the first is by facilitating the disclosure and investigation of serious wrongdoing, and the second is by protecting employees who, in accordance with the Act, make such disclosures.

Many in the Chamber have already referred to the report that was tabled in this Chamber in 2003 by Mary Scholtens. Quite why it has taken 6 years to get the issue through Parliament is questionable, indeed. Miss Scholtens is a Queen’s Counsel. Her report concluded that the Act had not been used a great deal, or used very well. Without a central coordinator, the range of appropriate authorities to which employees could disclose such information was quite confusing. Miss Scholtens also referred to a strong perception amongst those who were consulted on the Act that the identity of a whistleblowing employee would not be protected. This bill gives the Office of the Ombudsmen that enhanced role. It also picks up a number of other recommendations designed to improve the Act’s protections and processes.

As many in this Chamber have already said, the bill was considered by the Government Administration Committee, which was very well led by Mr Shane Ardern. The first change is the insertion under clause 6 of new section 6C(2). That provision states: “An organisation is not required to comply with a request made under subsection (1) if it is not a public sector organisation.” The amendment makes it clear that a private sector organisation is not obliged to comply with a request from the Ombudsman for information about that organisation’s internal procedures. The second change is the insertion under clause 8 of new section 15E(3). This amendment includes a reference to section 30 of the Ombudsmen Act and makes it an offence to refuse to provide to an Ombudsman the information specified in new section 15E. The Ombudsman will also be authorised to provide information and guidance to public or private sector employees on using the Act at any time, not just on request.

Public sector organisations are required to have internal procedures on how disclosures are to be made to them and how such disclosures will be investigated. This legislation requires that whistleblowers disclose in accordance with their employing organisation’s internal procedures, but complying with internal procedures can be difficult if there are none. New section 6C, inserted by clause 6, empowers the Ombudsman to request internal procedures and related information from an organisation. As a result, organisations may be encouraged to have a good, effective protected disclosures policy in place. Employees’ confidence should also increase if they know what the employing organisation’s internal procedures are. Under new section 15B, inserted by clause 8, the Ombudsman also has new powers to review and guide public sector organisations’ investigations of whistle-blowing. The power to guide investigations is facilitated rather than directed, and the power will be activated either on the organisation’s request or at the Ombudsman’s discretion. This should help to prevent disclosures of serious wrongdoing from circulating around various agencies without proper and appropriate resolution.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) : I would like to talk a little bit now about how some of these enhanced provisions of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill may apply in practice. In particular, I will talk a little about the health sector, and how these enhanced amendments may apply to it. I draw the attention of the Committee to clause 4(1) in Part 1, which amends the definition of an employee by “adding ‘(including a person who is a member of the board or governing body of the organisation)’.” I refer back to the comments I made earlier, on an item raised by Jacqui Dean, which was to do with the Otago District Health Board. The situation was that the chairperson who was the person responsible for correcting the problem, for correcting the mistakes that had been made, and for dealing with a very serious issue, ended up being sacked by the new National Government. So he had no protection, at all.

I think that it highlights that even though the Protected Disclosures Act brings board members within its ambit, the problem is that it does not preclude political interference by the Government of the day. People are still liable to lose their jobs if they are not seen to be onside with the Government of the day, no matter how good the work is that they have been doing to deal with any issues arising under the Protected Disclosures Act. I think that that is a really important point.

The protected disclosures legislation has potentially never been more important than it is now, at a time when public service numbers are being cut. Again, I refer to the health service here. I want to talk about senior doctors and nurses, and so on, who may want to raise concerns about medical services being dangerously cut to the bone under this current Government. This Government has gone back on its promise, made prior to the election, to only cap the Public Service. This Government said it would cap the Public Service, but it is cutting it. As a result, people’s lives in the health sector could be put at risk, and people may want to use the protected disclosures legislation to dob in this Government and to reveal its shortcomings. But under this Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill—

Hon Steve Chadwick: Muzzled!

CHRIS HIPKINS: —well, they will be muzzled in a number of ways—at least, because of the good work of the previous Labour Government, there will be some enhanced protections. I also want to talk about the fact that this bill gives the Ombudsmen some more powers, and to consider what that might mean. I believe that this is the second piece of legislation we have debated in this term of Parliament that gives the Ombudsmen more powers. Yet we have not really seen any evidence that the new National Government is willing to front up with the resources that the Ombudsmen will need.

Grant Robertson: Quite the opposite.

CHRIS HIPKINS: In fact, it is quite the opposite; it will probably cut them. That is really important, because the Ombudsmen probably struggle to deal with the phenomenal volume of work they have already, and, of course, the work has gone up under the present National Government. This is a Government that does not respond to any of its Official Information Act requests, so the Ombudsmen are continually being asked to investigate breaches of the Official Information Act.

In fact, I had a very good example just the other day of a Minister in this House refusing to release information under an Official Information Act request, and I had to complain about that to the Ombudsmen. I was asking a particular Minister, who is under a little bit of pressure in this House at the moment, about which stakeholder and lobby groups he had met with, and he refused the request on the grounds that it lacked “due particularity”. So he wasted the Ombudsmen’s time when they had to look into that, because he did not want to reveal whom he had met with. It was the Hon Dr Richard Worth who had refused to reveal whom he had met with.

As a result, the Office of the Ombudsmen must be under a lot of pressure, because that is not a lone case; that is common under this Government. It is refusing to comply with the law, and that results in more and more complaints to the Ombudsmen. This bill we are discussing puts even more responsibility on to the Ombudsmen. It increases the amount of pressure on the Office of the Ombudsmen, and, therefore, could potentially lead to greater pressure on the office, without any additional resources from the Government.

I will talk about some of the other areas where people may wish to raise concerns, and, particularly, about the Ministry of Social Development. Its staff deals with some pretty tricky issues there, but 500 staff will be cut from that ministry under this Government.

Grant Robertson: 500?

CHRIS HIPKINS: Five hundred staff are going to be cut. I can see the member for Maungakiekie scratching his head—he is clearly confused by that. He believed John Key when John Key said he was not going to cut the Public Service. Actually, that member was hoodwinked, because that is exactly what National wanted to do all along. So the Ministry of Social Development, which deals with some of the most vulnerable people in this country, is having 500 staff cut. It may well be that some of those 500 people will want to blow the whistle and say that the department has now been cut dangerously to the bone.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) : I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on Part 1 of this Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill.

It is very relevant to talk about the health sector in relation to this bill. I reiterate what my colleague Craig Foss brought up about the situation at the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board, where Deborah Houston contacted the board chairman under the Protected Disclosures Act, and was dismissed in a shocking manner. As Mr Foss pointed out, she said in a public speech that there is no doubt that the public administration must be transparent and it must be honest. The Labour Opposition members talk about a climate of fear; they have to look at themselves in a mirror. When they were in Government a very unjust dismissal occurred fairly and squarely under their watch. But I will go further than that. In 2007 the New Zealand State Services Commission Integrity and Conduct Survey found that of the respondents working in our district health boards, only 23 percent knew about the Protected Disclosures Act—only 23 percent. The rhetoric of the members of that great Labour Government is all about the district health boards and openness, but only 23 percent of respondents said they knew anything about the Act or how to apply it. It is quite ridiculous for those Labour members to now get up on their high horse and talk about a climate of fear, when undoubtedly they were heavily involved in the creation of one.

The whole purpose of this bill is to make it much easier for whistleblowers to comfortably complain when that is appropriate. I think that is exactly what comes up in the bill’s new section 6A, “Technical failure to comply with or refer to Act”, inserted by clause 6.The situation at the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board was one where Mrs Houston unfortunately talked to the board chairman when she should have talked to the human resources personnel, and a calamity—an injustice—happened to her. Of course, section 6A, “Technical failure to comply with or refer to Act”, states: “(1) A disclosure of information is not prevented from being a protected disclosure of information for the purposes of this Act merely because—(a) of a technical failure to comply with sections 7 to 10 if the employee has substantially complied with the requirement in section 6 to disclose the information in accordance with this Act; or (b) the employee does not expressly refer to the name of this Act when the disclosure is made.” A clear example can be made of how Mrs Houston could have applied this new provision. Clearly, this bill is a constructive attempt to ensure that people like her will not be treated in the same way that she was treated under the Labour Government.

I was quite appalled when I heard Grant Robertson talk about a climate of fear. If anyone is generating a climate of fear, it is Mr Robertson and the members of the previous Labour Government. After all, their Government’s poor-quality public spending, over a period of 9 years, has put New Zealand in a very difficult position. It spent $10 billion in the last Budget, which left the cupboard bare at a time when the previous Government knew that an economic crisis was looming around the world. Furthermore, I heard Chris Hipkins talk about Richard Thomson, the previous chairman of the Otago District Health Board. But he was not a whistleblower. The chairman’s job is to ensure, and to be accountable for, the efficient and effective running of that district health board. Yet, under his watch, New Zealand’s biggest-ever case of fraud occurred. Under his watch, that fraud went on for 7 years.

Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) : I shall carry on from the previous speaker in speaking about an open environment in the health sector. Tonight we have heard examples of staff losing their jobs, for example in the Otago District Health Board. I tell Dr Hutchison, who was an obstetrician and a gynaecologist, that in the public sector and district health boards, senior medical officers, as that member once was, are terribly nervous now about the Minister of Health’s new—it is like a shining light he has just seen—“clinical leadership”. He says let us bring in clinical leadership, as if it were a new idea. It had been there for 9 years. However, we cannot lead without the troops, and the troops behind the clinical leaders and senior medical staff are the ward clerks and booking clerks. I ask how the Government is ever going to get waiting lists down for things like cancer therapy treatment and emergency triage, without that team behind it. Senior medical staff members are saying they cannot do their jobs, in the environment of fear that is now in the district health boards, where the health teams will be cut to meet terms of efficiency for this Minister.

There is an environment of fear. It is out there right now. We heard before about other senior people who are losing their jobs. That is why, in 2003, following a report to Parliament about the Protected Disclosures Act, the Labour Government at the time came up with the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill that we are debating in this Chamber tonight. The bill will protect staff. Those staff who support senior doctors can speak out and say “enough”, and that they cannot go on in the health sector without the safety of patients being at risk in the name of clinical efficiency and fast tracking of patients in the hospital sector. Those people in that health team are beginning to ring us now in Opposition to tell us about that climate of fear, I say to Dr Hutchison. I am sure that that is something the Government never intended to bring about in the name of efficiency.

I am very pleased that with this bill the ward clerk, the clinical booking clerk, the librarian, and the cleaner can speak out and say they can no longer do their jobs in the name of efficiency and that bottom line in health. I heard Government members, when they were in Opposition, railing against the extra expenditure that went into health. Now it will cut that very fine public health service so that we can bring in privatisation by stealth and not look after the best interests of the public of New Zealand. I am pleased that we took action following that report in 2003 and said we would do something about it, and that we would protect people who speak out. Those are the very people whom Dr Hutchison talks about.

Of course, he would talk about chairmen and chairwomen, and people who are on higher levels. Let us talk about those who are on the ward floor, and who actually see the impact of what will happen with those cuts. Those cuts will go to the very heart of the public health system in this country that we on this side of the Chamber, when we were in Government, were so proud to build up into a health service that was second to none. Yes, we will make it easier for whistleblowers, and they will be protected; and, yes, only 23 percent knew about the previous protected disclosures legislation. The strengthening of the legislation will put in place systems of accountability in every sector—health, education, public service, and private sector—so that people know how they can safely disclose information. I think that is a very good aspect of this bill. After this bill goes through all stages, members will see that the awareness among employees of their rights to speak out about what they see that is wrong and unjust will increase inordinately. I am pleased we are debating this bill in the Chamber tonight.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) : I take this opportunity to move the conversation on a little during this Committee stage. I will focus on the amendments the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill makes to section 15 of the Protected Disclosures Act. The bill adds quite a considerable amount of value to that section. When we look at the bill, we see clause 8 inserts a new section 15A. Under the original Act, there is only section 15 and nothing else. In the bill we get new sections 15A, 15B, 15C, 15D, and 15E. I must admit that these new sections are very much about the body of this bill. They add transparency and confidence. They have everything to do with what the Ombudsmen’s responsibilities are.

New section 15A takes us through how the Ombudsmen may take over some investigations or investigate in conjunction with a public sector organisation. That is a very good move, in the sense that along with the trust that the public must have in the public sector organisations, we also have the credibility, integrity, and respect of the Office of the Ombudsmen. When we take our view down to new subsection (1), we see that it states “An Ombudsman may take over an investigation of a disclosure of information by a public sector organisation, or investigate a disclosure of information in conjunction with a public sector organisation.” It goes on through new paragraphs (a), (b), (c), and (d), and it talks about the very cases where that applies. When we go down to new subsection (2), however, it says that new subsection (1) “does not authorise an Ombudsman to act if the protected disclosure of information is in respect of the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.” That is quite interesting. At first, we might ask, why not? When we stop to think about it, we realise it is probably quite appropriate, because the Ombudsman is an Officer of Parliament. It would not be appropriate to have an Officer of Parliament investigating another Officer of Parliament.

That does bring to mind an incident that happened during the last term of Parliament, between 2005 and 2008, when we had a serious issue. It was not with regard to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment; it was actually with regard to the Ministry for the Environment. If people cast their minds back to the occasion of the lying of a lazy Labour Government Minister by the name of David Benson-Pope, and the incident around the dismissal of a media employee because of her relationship with a person who had political affiliations, it just draws us back to the points that were made before on the other side of the Chamber around the politicisation that can occur.

It is worth mentioning in this Committee stage that the politicisation from within this Chamber is something that needs to be given consideration to in the future around this particular bill. Under the previous Labour Government we saw the politicisation of the Public Service. That particular case, which meant a media employee was dismissed because of her relationship with a National Party employee, was treated quite unscrupulously. I say that members opposite will now realise that that was a terrible situation to fall into. Effectively, that was the death knell of the previous Government and the final nail in its coffin, because it had allowed that politicisation to occur and did not protect the individual. I would moot with some confidence that in the future what will happen around this legislation is that we will have to do our utmost to protect the individual over and beyond what this bill represents. When we look at how the Ombudsmen behave and conduct themselves, we see that we are thinking quite seriously about the individual.

Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) : I have had enough of this. I have heard the Government speakers talk a little bit about the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board, I have heard the Government speakers talk a little bit about the Otago District Health Board, and I have heard the Government speakers talk a little bit about the Ministry for the Environment. I am going to pick one of those three points and tell my story. I will not talk about the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board, even though I was the Minister of Health at the time when the chair of the district health board rang me on the whistleblowing issue, one January. I will not talk about that, because I have information regarding folk who are unable to defend themselves. The information involves employees of the district health board, which is why it is not proper.

For the same reason, I will not talk about the Ministry for the Environment, even though I know David Benson-Pope rather well, of course, and even though I know the Secretary for the Environment at the time, and even though I was the witness to the investigation that was carried out by the Solicitor-General. I was a witness to those hearings that he carried out with David Benson-Pope. The reason I will not comment is that that information also involves private individuals—not Mr Benson-Pope or the chief executive of the Ministry for the Environment—and it would not be proper. But I can talk about the Otago District Health Board.

I can talk about the Otago District Health Board for several reasons. First of all, the board is in the area that I happen to represent—Dunedin North. I was Minister of Health at the time, I know Richard Thomson, and I know the chief executive, Brian Rousseau. I know most of the board members; they are either friends or acquaintances. Some of them I do not know well, but most of them I do. I have never met Michael Swann, by contrast. The story is that Michael Swann set up what was to become the biggest fraud in public history, before Mr Thomson became chair of the board. Mr Swann did so in a series of techniques that were revealed in court and are on the public record. They are no great secret. But those techniques were regarded by the Serious Fraud Office and others who were involved in the investigation as clever—sufficiently clever that Audit New Zealand, when it looked at the Otago District Health Board on six separate occasions in the intervening years, did not see anything.

The fraud was not seen when the district health board, as a matter of ordinary managerial behaviour, decided to do a quick run on its information technology expenditure and found it to be a little below normal—not above normal. It was not found when the major contracts of the Otago District Health Board, in another ordinary managerial activity, were taken aside and one by one they were sent out and inspected by independent folk to make sure that they were all on track. The reason that the information technology contracts were not covered in the 10 biggest contracts is that they had been atomised by the fraudster so that they could not be seen as one contract.

It is a matter of fact that the fraudster had big flash cars in the car-park. One very clever Minister of Health was heard to ask only a few months ago: “How come nobody noticed the Lamborghini alongside the Toyota Corollas?”. People did notice; the previous chairman noticed. He said to Mr Swann: “What are you doing with that sort of car on the salary we give you?”. Mr Swann’s reply was: “I’ve developed some software, which I have licensed to Microsoft. I am independently wealthy. I come to work because I love my job, not because I need it.” So the idea was born that this guy was clever. It was later discovered that Microsoft was not very keen on licensing software and that that was a manufacture as well. But those are the sorts of techniques that the gentleman used.

There was, therefore, no way of knowing that the fraud had taken place—until one day, the chairman of the Otago District Health Board received a tip-off. It was not firm, but it was sufficiently concerning so that the chair of the district health board took a number of actions. He advised the police, who did nothing. He then ran, using some very clever techniques involving the chief financial officer of the time, a series of—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): We are getting away from the bill. I know there has been a kind of political debate on either side of the Chamber but I think we have concluded that. I would like to draw the debate back to relevancy to protected disclosures—

Hon PETE HODGSON: Let me offer to knock it off in 2 minutes.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I will give you 2 minutes.

Hon PETE HODGSON: Let me speed up. At the point that the chairman became aware, a series of activities took place that led to the fronting of Mr Swann. He was subsequently released from his duties that day, and the information technology system in the Otago District Health Board was then secured, There was an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, a series of court cases, and Mr Swann was found guilty on all charges, and, now, is in a jail in Dunedin, where I hope he spends some time. After that, the incoming Minister of Health decided—years later—that he wanted someone to be held accountable. So what he did in response—

Colin King: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I believe that the speaker on the other side of the Chamber is now departing from the tolerance that we were affording him on this side and he is starting to attribute blame. I would call the member back to the bill or to be seated.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I am in some difficulty here. The member is giving an explanation and I gave him another 2 minutes for that. I do not want to have a political situation arise where I have to give someone on the other side of the Chamber the same. I really want to get back to the bill. I ask the member to contain himself to detail—and this is a bit of an unusual step for me.

Hon PETE HODGSON: I understand this very well. I make one simple point: that if one has protected disclosure legislation in front of the House, then one needs to be very careful about the whole idea of sacking the person who did the disclosing.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) : We have just had 7½ minutes from an apologist on behalf of the Otago District Health Board—the member for Dunedin North, the Hon Pete Hodgson, former Minister of Health. But for a number of years at the Otago District Health Board the largest fraud was being undertaken by Mr Michael Swann and his colleague, and it went unnoticed by everybody, including the Minister of Health of the day who was the man whose responsibility it was to take charge—

Hon Steve Chadwick: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. We understood your ruling before, and again, I think, we are now going wide of the mark, on the bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Here is the difficulty I did not want to get into. If the member wishes to make an analogy that can be drawn back to Part 1 of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill, I will tolerate it. But if we are going to get into a debate just about an issue that is very, very obliquely related or not even related to the bill, then we are not going to have that.

JACQUI DEAN: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I was referring to the apologist for the Otago District Health Board, the Hon Pete Hodgson who, whilst Minister of Health at the time he was in Government, oversaw unknowingly—apparently—the largest fraud ever undertaken in a district health board in New Zealand. The direct consequence of that was that a number of my constituents failed to get hip operations, cataract operations, and any manner of the medical treatments they needed, were funded for, and deserved, because at the time various Ministers of Health were apparently turning a blind eye, and are now, shamefully in this Chamber, apologising for doing so. I have already outlined—

Hon Pete Hodgson: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I do not do this very often, but I take offence at the idea that I might have turned a blind eye. That suggests that I might have knowingly allowed a fraud of this nature to continue. That is an offensive proposition; I ask for the member to withdraw and apologise.

JACQUI DEAN: I withdraw and apologise.

Opposition speakers have spent a large part of their contributions this evening in taking credit for the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill, but we need to remember that the bill is the result of an inquiry held in 2003. Some 5 or 6 years later the country finally has a National Government—to the great relief of most people—and finally we have this bill back in the Chamber for its Committee stage. Of course, had this legislation been enacted in 2003, it may well have made things easier for those people who knew something about what was happening in Dunedin Hospital and at the Otago District Health Board. It may have given them comfort to go to the chief executive, or to whoever was designated under the legislation to hear a complaint or be told of some sense of disquiet, because maybe those people had noticed the Lamborghini in the car-park, as a lot of other people had. Maybe, if the previous Labour Government had got off its chuff in 2003 and brought this legislation to the House, we would not have had that fraud visited on the Otago District Health Board, and the people of Otago would not have missed out on a great many services as a consequence. How many millions were defrauded? Can anyone remember? Was it $13 million?

Hon Pete Hodgson: $16 million.

JACQUI DEAN: So $16 million was defrauded from the people of Otago. Had this legislation been enacted at that time, maybe—just maybe—the person who walked around the car-park of the Otago District Health Board, saw the Lamborghini, and saw the big boat parked up in the harbour, might have thought: “There’s something funny going on here. I think I’ll go and see the chief executive.” So it is a little bit galling to hear members of the Opposition apologising and explaining away the events that happened to the Otago District Health Board. I find that a little hard to believe.

National utterly supports the broad approach to the Protected Disclosures Act 2000. We believe in accountability, just as we insisted on accountability at the Otago District Health Board. We welcome accountability, which is why we fully support the broad approach of this protected disclosures legislation arising out of the review in 2003. I think it is worth noting that the Ombudsmen are held in high regard across Parliament and across the community as a whole. I go back to the Otago District Health Board issue, which I do not think we can turn away from in this instance because the events there are very relevant to the discussion on this bill. I do think that the Office of the Ombudsmen, with the increased powers that are given to it under this bill, could have been a viable alternative for the person who walked around that car-park.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : I want to bring us back to the bill, after that interesting, fairly predictable speech from the National Government member. The original Protected Disclosures Act required a review within 2 years, and that was carried out by the previous Labour Government. That is what we did and we asked Mary Scholtens to do the review. A review cannot be carried out in 5 minutes; it took a long time. It is a very interesting and comprehensive report, and I suggest the National Party members actually read it. They might find some information there that has an awful lot more to do with this bill than have some of the speeches we have heard from them.

As I said in my contribution before, I was on the Government Administration Committee, and, interestingly, there was not a huge wave of submissions. The committee asked to hear from the Public Service Association, at my instigation, and it confirmed Mary Scholtens’ observation that the procedures were not necessarily widely understood or widely used in the public sector. I have some questions that I would like to ask the Minister about that. If this amendment bill is going to do better, I would like to know what resources the Minister proposes to provide to the Office of the Ombudsmen—a question that was asked earlier by my colleague Grant Robertson. If this amendment bill is going to do better, and given that we are placing a lot more obligations on the Office of the Ombudsmen, the office needs to be properly resourced.

The next question I would like the Minister to address is about the low level of take-up of the procedures. The National Government has criticised that fact, but one could take the view that the reason the procedures were not taken up was that not a lot of protected disclosures needed to happen because we had such a good Public Service and such a good Government in power—unlike the previous period, the 1990s. I note again that the reason the Protected Disclosures Act came about in the first place was the problems and the culture of fear that had developed in the 1990s around the issues with Neil Pugmire and Good Health Wanganui—a ridiculous name! Given the low level of take-up of those procedures, as identified in the report, I ask what the Minister plans to do to ensure that the new procedures and rights under this bill are properly promulgated to all workers in all parts of the Public Service. We must bear in mind that we are talking about not just the core public sector but also the health sector, the education sector, the community sector, and the non-governmental sector—all sectors that actually receive Government funding—and this bill now extends the protected disclosure procedures to volunteers by widening the definition of “employee”.

I want to make a couple of other points in response to some of the contributions from National Government members. I was interested in the contribution from the member for Maungakiekie, Sam Peseta Lotu-Iiga, because I understand that some New Zealand Educational Institute workers and school support staff went to see him the other day, and they were talking about their wages and how shocking they are. Apparently, he got on the phone to the Minister of Education, Anne Tolley, and assured those people that he had her ear and she would address the issue of school support staff. These workers are on $12.94 an hour! I ask the Minister whether, given the threats the public sector is facing, those people will use these protected disclosure measures. I would like to hear from the member for Maungakiekie what the response from the Minister was, and whether there were any assurances that those people will get decent pay increases in the current wage round. By all means, he should take another call on that question.

I go back to the issue of Mrs Houston, which members have gone on and on about. As I said, I was on the select committee, so I heard from Mrs Houston, and, indeed, she went through a difficult time, but what I would say about her situation is that she took a personal grievance action against the district health board. If people read her submission to the committee, they will see that that happened, and that she ended up settling with the district health board. I do not have the amount of money in front of me, but she did receive a settlement, as often happens in these situations. May I say that that was able to happen because the Labour Government brought in the Employment Relations Act, which brought in personal grievance protections for workers in that situation. In fact, the Protected Disclosures Act 2000, which this bill amends, refers directly back to the Employment Relations Act and the right of workers to be protected under that Act.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) : Thank you for the opportunity to have another call on this very important Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. I absolutely agree with the previous speaker that Mary Scholtens’ review was a substantial and a significant one. I was not lucky enough to be on the Government Administration Committee that deliberated on the bill but I have taken the report out and I note that it is, indeed, very substantial. One of the points she made was that the Office of the Ombudsmen would also be able to help to conduct initial screenings to determine whether the nature of the complaint was such as to warrant a referral. She made the comment that after noting the jurisdictions of a number of appropriate authorities, the ministerial also noted that no single agency currently has a clear, perceived role of providing advice and counselling to individuals considering making disclosures outside their employing organisations.

So that was the situation in 2003. It was noted there were gaps in the jurisdiction between these authorities, and there was a need to maintain and develop the coordination and transfer of referrals between authorities to ensure those existing resources are used effectively, and that continued coordination between agencies and the provisions made for counselling and facilitating disclosure were important. It is quite significant that 4 years later, when the New Zealand State Services Commission Integrity and Conduct Survey was carried out, we learn that only 23 percent of our district health boards knew about the provisions of the Act.

But I go on further than that. The other revealing finding was there was less belief at the district health board level that senior and middle management would exhibit and practise elements of ethical behaviour. I think that is extremely concerning for all of us here. Undoubtedly this was the ethos of the Labour Government of the time, and it must fall squarely and fairly on it. When Darien Fenton talked about the reparation that Deborah Houston finally received, it was in a climate that was quite unsatisfactory.

The third disturbing conclusion from the survey was that although district health board employees report breaches of standards at about the same rate as the State Services Commission average, their reasons for not reporting are typically more fear-based. That is, again, a very strong reason why this bill is so important, and why the various provisions that we have here are set to give the whistleblower extra help, both through the Ombudsmen facilitating and through the various other amendments to the principal Act. These include the technical failures to comply or refer to the Act, as set out in new section 6A, inserted by clause 6, and in clause 4 where a person who works for the organisation as a volunteer without reward or expectation of reward for that work is also included in the definition of an employee. Public official, of course, means a person who is an employee of a public sector organisation.

If we continue, we find that Part 1 answers many of the problems that were identified by Mary Scholtens and addresses many of the problems that were identified in the Public Service survey that was carried out. I want to emphasise just how important are the various aspects of this bill. I refer to new section 15, inserted by clause 8, whereby the Ombudsmen may escalate disclosures to an appropriate authority or Minister, or investigate disclosure, and here, of course, the Ombudsmen may refer the disclosure to a Minister of the Crown.

• Part 1 agreed to.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) : I will take just a brief call on Part 2 because, obviously, it is a very brief part in itself, being just the one clause. It is a transitional provision that states in clause 13: “The amendments made by this Act apply to disclosures of information made after the commencement of this Act.” That is quite a normal clause in many ways, but it does give me cause to refer back to Dr Hutchison’s speech—not the one we just heard, but the one before that—where he accused me and my Labour colleagues of creating a climate of fear in the Public Service. I have to say that nothing is further from the truth. In fact, this transitional provision, although it is quite conventional, gives rise to concern about those public servants at the moment in that climate of fear, who may feel that they need to make some kind of disclosure under this Act, but who will be feeling that they cannot. At the moment, because they are not able to make disclosures under the bill until it comes into force, they do not have the extensions that have been granted under this Act. I say to Dr Hutchison that the climate of fear is not being created by the Labour Party; the climate of fear has been created by the National Party’s strategy. Admittedly, National was to do it all under the radar—to make these cuts in public services under the radar. John Armstrong wrote about this in the New Zealand Herald. He said that National had learnt from the past. It was not going to do a big public slash-and-burn exercise in the Public Service; it was going to do it under the radar. Chief executives would be making the announcements, not Ministers. They did not want to be associated with it.

But I tell Mr Hutchison that I am proud of the fact that I am standing up for public servants. I am proud of the fact that I am going out there and saying to people that this is what is happening, these are the jobs being cut—250 jobs at the Inland Revenue Department, 80 jobs at the Ministry for the Environment, 70 jobs at the Tertiary Education Commission—because it is the National Government that is making these cuts and it is ordinary New Zealanders who will suffer. A climate of fear has been—

Nathan Guy: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. We are on Part 2, the transitional provision. This is a very tight part of this bill. The amendment is made, and this is forward-looking. That member is extremely wide of this very tight Part 2.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I have cautioned the Committee. We want to talk about the bill; I ask the member to come back to Part 2, clause 13.

GRANT ROBERTSON: I do not have a lot to say here. I am just making the point that the clauses and the powers in this bill come into force only when the Act comes into force. At the moment we have public servants, in the interim period before commencement, who are in a vulnerable position. They are in a vulnerable position because the National Government has cut jobs in the Public Service, and has cut back on services, and those people are operating in a climate of fear where they will not be able to disclose the wrongdoing they see because of their fear. I think that is wrong.

• Part 2 agreed to.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) : I am glad of the opportunity to speak on the title of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. I was quite interested to read the second reading speech of the Māori Party regarding this bill, where the speaker, Rahui Katene, suggested that the title be the “Workplace Whistleblowing Bill”. I thought she was absolutely right-on; so often we do shroud our titles with terminology that the public find quite hard to understand. Undoubtedly, Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill is quite correct technically, because it is the amendment bill to the Protected Disclosures Act 2000, which was brought in at that time and reviewed by Mary Scholtens QC in 2003, and to the amendment Act of 2007. I thought Rahui Katene made an interesting point at that time, because one of the problems with whistleblowing is that the public themselves are not aware of the facilities that are available. But one would hope very much that given this current reading there will be some publicity, and that people in organisations up and down the country who have genuine grievances will have the opportunity to utilise the extra facilities and protections afforded by this bill. Maybe when the media are talking about it, they might talk about it as the “Workplace Whistleblowing Bill”, and I hope that it will be practical and applicable to all ranges of people through both public and private institutions.

Once again, I think it is important to reiterate the fact that the review by Mary Scholtens QC in 2003 was comprehensive and did lead to the amendments in 2007. When the amendment Act was brought in, in about November 2007, the Government Administration Committee set about gathering submissions, but for a whole year absolutely nothing happened under the previous Labour Government. That is how little Labour thought of the importance of a bill it is now trying very hard to politicise. Basically, Labour did very little. It had plenty of opportunity to bring in the second and third reading, but it failed to do so. So it is very satisfactory, indeed, that a new National Government—which is forward-looking and determined to put things right—has in the first 6 months managed to get this bill through, and, hopefully, will have it passed into legislation within the next few weeks.

There is no doubt that, in genesis, the whistleblowing legislation has gone through several decades of iterations. There is no doubt that several Governments have tried to wrestle with it; we can see that if we think of the fact that the Neil Pugmire incident occurred back in the 1990s. Then, of course, there were the more recent occurrences at Hawke’s Bay, and even more recently at Otago—but I would not regard the latter as a whistleblowing incident, at all. That was a situation where the chairman of the Otago District Health Board was required to ensure the efficient, effective running of that board, so that was quite different from the normally considered matter in which this legislation can be applied, where someone in an organisation sees a wrong, feels helpless to do anything about it, and then may or may not go to the right person. This bill certainly affords a far greater certainty that anyone in an organisation will be assisted practically if he or she wishes to whistle-blow.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : I want to take a fairly brief call on Part 2 of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill in relation to the title and commencement clauses.

Hon Dr Wayne Mapp: A brief one does seem like a long one, though!

DARIEN FENTON: That is Mr Mapp’s opinion, and anyone who has to listen to that member speak would probably echo exactly what the member just said.

In relation to the title, l want to talk about the Protected Disclosures Act. Let us talk about what protected disclosure actually means. It is disclosure in the public interest of serious wrongdoing. The member who just resumed his seat, Paul Hutchison, talked about different titles, whistleblowing, and so on, but let us talk about the serious nature of the title, and, when we unpack it, what protected disclosures are. A “serious wrongdoing” includes unlawful, corrupt, or irregular use of money or resources. These are serious issues. The members opposite may not think so, but I think it is worth putting on the record what protected disclosure means, particularly under this National Government, and particularly for those 6,000 workers in Auckland who are employed by local government and may be thinking about this issue as they go through very uncertain times over the next couple of months. “Serious wrongdoing” also means conduct that poses a serious risk to public health, public safety, the environment, or the maintenance of law; any criminal offence; and gross negligence or mismanagement by public officials. So protected disclosure is a serious matter. It is more than whistleblowing, which is one example. I want to put on the record exactly what we are talking about when we talk about protected disclosure.

My other comment is in relation to the commencement date. The commencement date is the day after the bill receives the Royal assent. I have a serious question about that, and it relates to the 90-day trial period bill. What will happen to somebody who seeks to make a disclosure under this legislation—when it is passed—who has been employed under the 90-day bill? How the heck will that person have the courage to step up and make a disclosure about serious wrongdoing, when he or she is under the threat of the sack in 90 days, and has no personal grievance protection—no protection? In that 90-day period, awful things can happen in public sector organisations.

Right now the country is going through a period of pandemic preparedness. We have a serious situation. I am thinking about the workers in hospitals whom I know very well. I am thinking of the contract cleaners, the ones who clean the wards, the workers who prepare the food, and so on. They are all probably the most vulnerable workers when it comes to the 90-day bill. How on earth will those workers be able to step up and, under the Protected Disclosures Act, say that they think their hospital, rest home, or disability service is taking shortcuts? How will they be able to say that they are worried about their employer opening up the rest of the population to infection? Those workers will want to use this legislation, but where will they find any protection, and how will they have the courage to do that? This is a very serious situation that we face right now—we all know that. Luckily, it seems that we have a swine flu that is not particularly virulent. It is virulent, but it is certainly not affecting our people in the way it is affecting people in Mexico. But if we put ourselves in the situation where we have a bird flu pandemic, which we contemplated when we did the pandemic preparedness legislation—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Can we just come back to the bill.

DARIEN FENTON: Let us think about what this might mean under the commencement date and the title of this bill. [Interruption] I am just making an appeal to those members over there, who think this is very, very funny. They do not think about these important things when they bring in their mad ideas, such as sacking workers after 90 days.

The commencement date is very, very important. Let us be aware that the bill we are passing is important. There will be consequences for workers in vulnerable workplaces who provide health services, education services, and other services, and who have been employed under the 90-day bill. Thank you, Mr Chairperson.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) : I will take a reasonably brief call on the title clause of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. When we talk about the title clause, it is worth coming back, as my colleague Darien Fenton did, to what the bill is fundamentally about. This bill is about the abuse of power, and protection for the people who blow the whistle on it. I think, as I listen to the debate, that there is general consensus on both sides of the Chamber that those people should be protected, and the provisions in the bill, introduced by the previous Labour Government, are worthy in that regard.

One possible alternative title for this bill would be “The National Government Has No Legislation of Its Own Bill”. Once again, here we are discussing yet another bill that was introduced by the hardworking and conscientious previous Labour Government. There is very little evidence that the National Government has any ideas of its own, although I have to say that it is refreshing to be debating a bill that is not in the name of Simon Power. Just about every other bill we have debated so far in this parliamentary session has been in the name of Simon Power. I am not sure whose name this bill is in. It is difficult to know how many of them are actually doing any work. Anyway, I come back to the point about the bill being called “The National Government Has No Legislation of Its Own Bill.” Clearly, we are still waiting.

The bill could also be called the “Public Service Really Needs Protecting Bill”, and, actually, that is probably the most pressing issue—the public service really needs protecting. Despite the National Party’s promise not to cut the public service, we have seen 70 jobs go from the Tertiary Education Commission. Five hundred jobs have gone from the Ministry of Social Development. That department deals with the most vulnerable people, and its staffing has been cut. Thirty jobs have been cut at the National Library; 70 jobs have been cut in the Ministry for the Environment; and 250 jobs have been cut from the Inland Revenue Department. These are the reasons why this bill could be called the “Public Service Really Needs Protecting Bill”. Thirty-seven jobs are going from the Ministry of Justice, despite National’s pre-election rhetoric about capping and not cutting the public service. National members did not mean a single word of it. They went out and promised tax cuts that they knew they could not afford. But it gave them a justification, once they got into Government, to cut public spending, which was their agenda all along.

This bill could be called the “Extending Protection to Chairpersons Bill”. They need it. As we have seen from the Otago District Health Board, the chairs of boards, under this National Government, need more protection. Under this National Government it is clear that if the Government does not like a person, no matter how competent that person is and no matter how good he or she has been at dealing with serious issues within whatever entity he or she is chair of, that person will be sacked by this National Government. People will be sacked without any justification simply because the Government does not like them, or, even worse, because the Government thinks that their politics are wrong. It is only interested in having National Party cronies on boards. A valid point was raised—by Paul Hutchison, I think; I cannot quite remember—about the lack of awareness of the Protected Disclosures Act.

Grant Robertson: That was Paul Hutchison.

CHRIS HIPKINS: I think it was Paul Hutchison who raised that point. It certainly would not have been Paul Quinn; there are no valid points there. It is heartening to see in this bill the ability to promote the Act and, particularly, the role of the Office of the Ombudsmen in promoting the Act and advising people on it has been enhanced. That was a very long-sighted move by the previous Labour Government. It was among the many initiatives the previous Labour Government had that were sound and well researched—something this Government does not know anything about. Its members certainly do not do any research, and they do not listen to any advice. In fact, they are sacking all the people who could potentially provide them with advice so that Government members might sound intelligent. Perhaps they might be able to come up with some legislation of their own, were they not in the process of sacking everybody who might be able to help them come up with legislation.

To finish, because I said I was going to be brief, the Labour Party supports this bill. It is a bill that was introduced by the previous Labour Government, and we will continue to vote for it.

PESETA SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie) : I will speak to the title of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill; I am not going to ramble on like some of the previous speakers. This bill is about the protection of disclosures and the protection of those who choose to take the risk to point out injustices within public organisations. As I stated in my earlier representation to the Committee, the bill is designed to improve aspects of an Act that currently exists. It gives the Ombudsmen an enhanced coordinating and helping role. It should allow whistleblowers to bring serious wrongdoings to light, while protecting their interests and making it easier for organisations to investigate people effectively.

This is a good bill. It is not about the current Government persecuting and chasing after bureaucrats; it is about the protection of those who are willing to raise up their voices against injustice and willing to raise up their voices against fraud and crimes, which we heard about earlier today. It is not about the political machinations of mistakes that have been made in the health sector, which certain members have alluded to. It is not about apologising for mistakes that were made under 9 years of quite incompetent oversight of the country and of Government departments. It is not about that; it is about protecting those who have said “I see something wrong within my organisation or my place of work, and I am prepared to take a risk and speak out against some of the injustices.”

Some of the changes to the principal Act are commendable. Some of those changes have been alluded to by a number of members in this Committee, without getting into the political debates around some of the examples that have been used. This amendment bill has been based on a report, a comprehensive report that was submitted to the Government Administration Committee some time ago. I am glad that all members and all parties within this Chamber have come together to promote this bill. The National Government is closing this bill. We are closers; we do not just talk it up. We are not going to ratchet it up. We are closing this because we believe in it—whether or not the Opposition also believes in it. We are a Government of action, unlike the previous one that sat around with a bare Order Paper for the last 3 years of its term in Government. We are a Government that has a full Order Paper, whether or not some bills were initiated under the previous Labour Government, and we are proceeding with some of the actions in this bill.

We support the broad approach of the principal Act, and we support the efforts to improve its operation as well as its administration. Some members here tonight have talked about the resources to be applied to implementing some of the changes within this legislation. That is not something for me to look at. Our debate tonight is really about changing the principal effects of the Act in order for it to run in a smooth and efficient manner. As some have already said tonight, the Ombudsmen are held in high regard across this whole Parliament, and it is a good fit to increase the facilitation and coordination role of that particular office and those particular persons, within their place in Government. We expect that this bill will provide better tools to enable Government agencies to respond in a more coordinated and effective manner. It is not just about the legislative changes that are going on; some changes do need to be made both within organisations that will use this bill and also among the leadership of those organisations. And some speakers here tonight have pointed the finger at some of those leaders.

Finally, all parties here agree that silence is sometimes not an option, and that it is in the public interest that sometimes confidence is broken in order to go after some of the wrongs that have been committed within the public domain. Thank you.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) : There has been a very interesting and fulsome debate on considering the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. Seen in the context of the Committee here, and the bill’s significance, the title is appropriate. I did not have the pleasure of sitting on the Government Administration Committee, but I see that it was well chaired by Shane Arden under the previous Parliament. The bill has come back to the Chamber and it will progress through this Committee stage. No doubt it will progress further to receive its third reading and pass into law.

But we must not forget about the procession of events that have led to where we are today. I heard members on the other side of the Chamber talking about those early days in relation to Lake Alice Hospital. I think we have to reflect on that and be aware of the consequences of a person there who was moved from the heart to report the occurrence of things that were not right, and who suffered the ultimate embarrassment of being dismissed—and dismissed, probably, under some form of fabricated excuse—rather than being treated as a person who was actually trying to make sure that a Government department behaved at a very, very high level of integrity.

We have moved on down through the situations. We heard about the case before the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board and that, too, cannot be dismissed. It showed us that it was very important that a review of the Protected Disclosures Act was entered into. That was done in 2003, and done with a great deal of integrity, and we are now applying ourselves here to the bill that emanated from that review.

The Committee, effectively, agrees on the bill’s appropriateness, and I believe that two areas epitomise it all: no longer do whistleblowers have to stick to the very letter of the law; as long as they stick roughly to the processes that have been adopted by a public organisation, they should then be taken seriously. And they can go to the Ombudsmen, who should get alongside them and walk them through the process, where necessary. That will do a lot for the general public.

We heard from Dr Paul Hutchison that only 23 percent of people working in Government departments—I believe that may have been in the health sector—knew about the Protected Disclosures Act 2000. That is really shameful. If anything is achieved with this bill and with the introduction of these amendments into the Act, and if that raises the public profile of the procedures required to improve the process around the protection of people who genuinely believe that wrong things are being carried out within a Government department—and they can have that level of protection—then this bill should be commended. I think we have to keep challenging ourselves, because, really, if we leave it just there, there may be no improvement whatsoever, and we want to see that people can have confidence and can speak out freely. We notice also that the bill talks about the immunity that people can experience if they are wrong, and I think that that is also appropriate. However, if a person blatantly abused that situation, it would not stand the test of natural justice.

So the title of the bill—the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill—is appropriate. It is appropriate for a number of reasons, but more particularly because the Act it amends is called the Protected Disclosures Act 2000. Thank you.

NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki) : This is a very important bill, judging by the support it has received across the whole of Parliament this evening. That just shows how important it is. I wish to make a contribution on the title and the commencement date of this bill. The bill will repeal and replace the Private Investigators and Security Guards Act 1974.

There are some very important parts of this bill. I do not care to politicise it as the Labour Opposition has tried to do this evening. Even though those members are supporting the bill, they are out there trying to scaremonger. It just shows that the departure of Dr Cullen, who delivered his valedictory this evening, has really put pressure on the interesting people who are busy doing the numbers down the corridors now. Maybe they will be working very hard now that they have lost two of the very key components of the Labour Party—but I digress. This is an important bill. It is important because the following people will have to hold a licence: private investigators, security technicians, security consultants, property guards, and personal guards. These people will be required to hold a licence, which is extremely important.

The other important thing—

Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairman. I am sorry to interrupt, but I was very confused there. The Government member was talking about security guards. This debate is on the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. Earlier today we were debating issues around security guards and private investigators, but that is not what this bill is about, so I cannot see what Mr Guy was talking about.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): That is not a point of order. The bill is clearly the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill.

NATHAN GUY: It just shows that the new member from Wellington Central, who has been in here a short time, does not actually understand—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): It is out of order to comment on a Chairperson’s decision. The member is invited to continue with his speech.

NATHAN GUY: Thank you, Mr Chair. I will talk now specifically to the title, which is the important part of this bill—

Hon Members: What is it?

NATHAN GUY: —the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill—and also to the commencement date, which will occur after the third reading. The important part of this bill is to do with the Ombudsmen. We have had some very good discussion across the whole of Parliament this evening. I wanted to make a particular comment on new section 15D, which is to be inserted into the Protected Disclosures Act under clause 8. The provision relates to the Ombudsmen and it is very important; I will make some comments about it. The Ombudsmen are particularly busy, as we all know. Section 15D states: “The Chief Ombudsman may, by written notice, appoint a person to perform an Ombudsman’s functions under this Act.” That is vitally important, because the Chief Ombudsman is under a huge amount of pressure. This provision will mean that the Chief Ombudsman can delegate part of his or her role to get on top of the functions of that role.

This bill has received a huge amount of support across the whole of Parliament this evening. The transitional provision has been talked about, and that is enabled with this bill. The bill is not retrospective; it is looking forward. It was drafted under the Legislation Advisory Committee guidelines, which is very important, and that is why I believe this bill will be passed. It is very important that this Government carries on with the good work, and that is why National, the main Government party, is supporting this bill.

• Clause 1 agreed to.

• Clause 2 agreed to.

• Clause 3 agreed to.

• Bill to be reported without amendment presently.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) : I rise to speak in the Committee stage of the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill, particularly to Part 1. Supplementary Order Papers containing some technical amendments and an amendment to the commencement date have been lodged by the Minister of Māori Affairs, and we certainly support them.

The history of this particular bill is that it has been well debated in this House. The previous Labour Government introduced it with two specific components. One was to have the office of the Māori Trustee established as a stand-alone entity, and the other was to do with accelerating Māori development. The Māori Affairs Committee at the time gave the bill quite a full hearing, and what we now have in the Committee stage are some minor but useful amendments.

As I point out some of those issues, I hope that the Minister in the chair, the Hon Georgina te Heuheu, sees fit to take a call, because what has happened is that of the two parts of the bill as it was introduced by the previous Labour Government, the first part of the bill has remained all but intact, with some useful amendments, and the second part, regarding Māori development, has been left for a further conversation.

I was not a member of that select committee, but I remember the debate in the House. It is interesting that people tend to forget what they have said in Opposition once they are in Government. I have a particular statement here, which is a very forceful one: “National believes that the role of the Māori Trustee needs fundamental revision. National believes that it is time to have a deep think about how Māori land should be reviewed, particularly the assets involved with the Māori Trustee. It is fundamentally wrong to have this approach. It simply transfers assets that could have been transferred to iwi back into a centralised approach … It simply transfers assets that could have been transferred back to iwi back into a centralised approach.” That was said by none other than Dr Wayne Mapp during the first reading debate. What he was saying there basically is that what Labour was doing in trying to set up the Māori Trustee office as a stand-alone entity was not the right thing to do—

Hon Tau Henare: Oh rubbish! You’ve got it wrong.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: —and that we should in fact give all the assets back to iwi. I have that statement here, I say to Mr Henare, and I am quite happy to table the statements made by Dr Mapp when he was in the House.

Actually, the important thing about this particular issue is what it leads one to think. National, now that it is in Government, has a real ability to add things into the Māori Trustee Act. When National members were in Opposition they talked about the types of things they said they would do. Now that National is in Government it has the prime opportunity to do those things, and it has not done so.

I will give an example. One of criticisms voiced by Mr Henare when he was in Opposition was that it was difficult to find Māori landowners. Many of the Māori electorate MPs—in fact, many of the Māori MPs in this House—know just how difficult it is to find Māori landowners and to try to ascribe a lot of those unclaimed moneys. Is there anything in the Supplementary Order Papers that suggests a way of putting greater obligation on the Māori Trustee to do this? There is nothing. Members opposite when in Opposition criticised things that were very difficult to do, and they said that this should be done and that should be done. Now they have an opportunity to do that, and they have not done so. I have raised that point because it is very interesting to hear what people say in Opposition and do not deliver on when in Government.

Largely, this bill is not controversial. I think everyone would agree that setting up the Māori Trust Office as a stand-alone entity is a good thing. I see that it is the strong intention of the Government to make sure that the Act comes into force by 1 July, and I think the sooner, the better. That is very important. The Act is to be read in line with Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, and I do want to pick up on some comments made by Dr Wayne Mapp in the previous debate. I also agree that Te Ture Whenua Maori Act is in need of review, and some changes should and must be made.

This is a slight departure from the debate, but it is a useful one, I think. When we consider a number of the inhibiting and constraining factors around developing unproductive Māori land, we see that part of it lies in a legislative solution and part of it lies in policy, but a great part of it lies in a reorientation of how current policy is used. I am particularly pleased to see that Te Puni Kōkiri is continuing its review of Māori land with regard to the valuation of Māori land and the rating of Māori land. I think this in part may help to loosen some of the constrictions.

PAUL QUINN (National) : I welcome the opportunity to speak to the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill during the Committee stage, and I am sure my friends and colleagues from the Opposition will be pleased to know that I intend taking a number of calls on it. There is a lot to share with them, and for them to understand and come to grips with.

But I want to start by reflecting on one statement that my friend and colleague Master Hipkins has reiterated throughout this evening in respect of the previous bill—that this is a Labour bill that National is bringing forward. The truth of the matter is that he is right, but what he has not said is that Labour was unable to get things done. It has been left to the great National Government that we are becoming to clean up and clear the slate. This bill is a classic example. Let me, if I may, take a moment of the Committee’s time and read from the select committee report: “Because it is desirable that changes to establish the Māori Trustee as a stand-alone organisation be passed into legislation before the close of this Parliament, we resolved that splitting the bill along these lines was prudent.” In recognition of trying to get this bill through the previous Parliament, Labour split the bill but it still could not deliver.

The Opposition might remind us from time to time that when this great National Government was in Opposition, we opposed this bill. That is correct, as well. But the reason National opposed the bill was, as my honourable colleague the previous speaker, Nanaia Mahuta, has pointed out, that this was part of a much larger bill, commonly referred to as the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill. In fact, because of the great stewardship and leadership shown by the select committee members who considered this bill, which I note was made up of a majority of members who are now Government members, they were able to bring some focus and some common sense to the reality of “let’s just deal with the Māori Trustee aspects of this”.

We were opposed because, on the one hand, there was a need to deal with the specific issues around the Māori Trustee and the Māori Trust Office, but the then Government also, on the other hand, tried to create this monolith Māori Development Corporation, to which it was going to appoint a whole lot of ministerial cronies and create this huge slush fund for them to spend. We opposed that because time and time again we have had reference made to political appointments. My learned friends on the Opposition benches are past masters and colleagues of this particular skill. We were opposed to that, and through our great vision and drive and the majority we had on the select committee we were able to separate it out and create a focused bill to deal specifically with the issues confronting the Māori Trust Office.

As we work our way through this bill, I think it will provide an excellent opportunity to focus on the work that the Māori Trust Office does and needs to do, because there are a number of aspects in this bill that will drag the office and the Māori Trustee into the 21st century. For instance, there are clauses in the bill that deal with the fact that the Māori Trustee no longer has to just sign cheques, and cheques only, but will be able to use other means of efficient distribution, and so on.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) : I will pick up from where I left off. In terms of the opportunities provided by this bill and the associated mechanisms that may help to support the development of unproductive Māori land, which I think falls on the Māori Trustee to try to aid, the real issue is trying to review Te Ture Whenua Maori Act to look at how the role of the Māori Trustee can support the development of unproductive Māori lands. Many of these lands might fall under his purview. I think further thinking can happen in that space. It was interesting to listen to the speaker on the other side of the Chamber, Paul Quinn. Not once did he mention a lot of the detail of Part 1, but then as a new member he may not have read the full part of the bill.

There are obviously some practical issues in respect of setting up the Māori Trust Office. At the moment the Māori Trustee exists under Te Puni Kōkiri. They co-locate in many regions. Their office spaces share resources. The new opportunity that is afforded here is that the Māori Trustee will be set up as a corporation sole, and it will have in its own right the capacity to employ people. It will continue to have deputy trustee officers who will have certain delegations. I think that is all well and good, and it is really important. My only concern, in terms of the transitional issues that the two parties will have to consider, is the fact that we are in a recession. I hope they do not lose the opportunity, if and where useful, to continue to co-locate. There are some very sound financial reasons why I think that is really important.

The other aspect that could be considered—and I am not sure whether the Māori Affairs Committee deliberated on it—is that of the annual reports. Given that the trustee is to be set up as a stand-alone entity that will be fully accountable for its operations, I hope the annual reports provide greater clarity to the beneficiaries of unclaimed monies. Those are exactly the kinds of things that the Māori Trustee will undertake on their behalf. The devil will be in the detail and in the reporting.

I welcome, under schedule 2, the insertion of “the Māori Trustee” to schedule 4 of the Public Finance Act, which will give a level of accountability that will be very important to many of the beneficiaries, who have a right to know what the Māori Trustee is doing on their behalf. The explanatory note and some other information I have read suggest that some beneficiaries will choose or elect to retain their small shareholdings within the Māori Trust Office. That may well be the case, and that is why greater transparency around annual reporting will be helpful to them.

The other aspect of Part 1 that I want to comment on in particular relates to the termination of appointment of the Māori Trustee. I will take some time on this, because I have some questions to ask. The criteria for terminating the appointment of the Māori Trustee are well set out in the bill. Essentially, there could be a situation whereby the Māori Trustee is appointed for 5 years and rolls over for another 5 years, or the trustee could be terminated according to express criteria in the bill. If the Minister chooses to terminate the employment of the Māori Trustee, who then carries out the functions? It is not clear. Although there are deputy trustees who have specific written delegations, if the Minister is required, for some very public reasons or based on some very public criticisms, to suspend the office of the Māori Trustee, what happens to those delegated functions in that time period? In the way the legislation reads, one must have express written delegations to the deputy trustee.

I ask the Minister in the chair, the Hon Georgina te Heuheu, to clarify that particular question, for no other reason than to highlight that there could be a bit of a difficulty there. Often with appointments like this the consideration of termination or suspension of time in office is carried out purely for political reasons. That presents a difficulty in terms of the smooth functioning and running of the office. I would like the Minister to take a call to clarify that.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : I am mindful that the previous speaker, in her opening 5-minute speech, said that what members say when they are in Opposition is the opposite of what they say when they are in Government. But I am not sure whether she was talking about us or them.

Opposition members have mentioned that the Māori Trustee will stand alone, they have mentioned Wayne Mapp, and they have mentioned all those flowery things that could happen to the Māori Trustee. Actually, all of those things are happening under this bill. As for the stuff that is not happening—the development stuff that Nanaia Mahuta talked about—I ask Labour members why they did not put it in the bill when they were in Government. Oh, that is right—they did not do that. They tried to cleverly siphon off $35 million into some sort of development fund, but nobody knew how that development fund was to be worked out.

Hon Nanaia Mahuta: Will the member take a question?

Hon TAU HENARE: No, I am not a Minister. I should be—but OK, that is not for me to say. All of the things the previous speaker talked about—the corporation sole and a stand-alone Māori Trustee—are good, excellent ideas. That is why the previous Māori Affairs Committee—chaired, I might add, by Dave Hereora, who did a pretty good job—had already agreed to do all of that. So it should not come as a shock.

If other things should have been added to Part 1, why did that last Māori Affairs Committee not have those things in front of it? It is because the previous Minister of Māori Affairs, the Hon Parekura Horomia, in his wisdom, thought otherwise. In his wisdom, he brought the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill to this House and to the select committee. We have split that bill in half because there was not too much agreement on its second half, but there certainly was on the first half, as we see here in Part 1. This bill is about a corporation sole, and about making the Māori Trustee more responsible and transparent. It is about making sure there is a reporting regime, so that all of the beneficiaries can see what the trustee is up to.

The bill addresses the termination of the trustee, but I bet a year’s salary that if the trustee were terminated, one of the assistant trustees, or another person—maybe it would be the Chief Executive of Te Puni Kōkiri; who knows—would be put in place. There would be a process whereby the office of the Māori Trustee would have a leader, for however long.

So the previous speaker can go on about what should have been in the bill, what is in the bill, and what is not in the bill, but here is the question: if so much is missing from this part of the bill, and from the part that was shaved off by the previous Māori Affairs Committee, why did the present Opposition not do something about it during its 9 years in Government? This is not a big criticism, but it is in response to the previous speaker saying that what members say in Opposition is different from what they say when they are in Government.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (Associate Minister of Māori Affairs) : I will make a few observations, particularly in relation to the matter raised by the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, which my colleague the Hon Tau Henare also made some comment on.

By way of a preliminary, I thank the Māori Affairs Committee for its work. This bill is very important to the National Government. When National was in Opposition, its members on the Māori Affairs Committee were very clear that they supported the setting up of the Māori Trustee as a separate organisation in order to make sure that it had independence. As has already been referred to by one of my colleagues, National did not agree with what the Labour Government of the time tried to include in the original Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill, hence the split into the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill and the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill. When National was in Opposition, it clearly did not support the original bill. There was no support for it, and it was not raised in consultation with Māori at the number of hui that were held around the country. The setting up of the Māori Trustee as an independent organisation was supported, but the other part of the bill was not. The select committee worked quite hard last year to make sure that when and if the bill emerged in the House again, it would deal with the core issue, which was to create the Māori Trustee as an independent organisation.

Under current law, the Māori Trustee is independent from the Crown, but also it is an office conferred on an employee of Te Puni Kōkiri. Under current arrangements there is potential for the perception of a conflict of interest; that matter has been raised by Māori over a long period of time. The setting up of the Māori Trustee as a stand-alone organisation will underline its independence, as I have already said; there was broad support for this stand-alone Māori Trustee at consultation. Those are very important points, and it was on the basis of those points that the National Opposition last year opposed the bill as it was originally brought to the House by the Labour Government. That is why we are very pleased to be here in the Chamber tonight in the Committee of the whole House, and to see this bill as it is now—as the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill—progress through Parliament.

I want to make some comments, though; I think it is fair, as the Hon Nanaia Mahuta raised the issue. One of the questions raised by the member was how the Māori Trustee is able to be removed from office.

Hon Nanaia Mahuta: If they’re removed—

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: Yes—what will happen if the Māori Trustee is removed from office? In that event—and we hope that it would never occur—grounds are set out. New section 6B(5) explains that the Minister of Māori Affairs may remove the Māori Trustee from office on the grounds of “(a) undischarged bankruptcy, misconduct, or neglect of duty; or “(b) inability to perform the functions and duties of the Māori Trustee.” We should be very clear that this threshold is very high—very high, indeed—and is similar to the thresholds applying to the removal from office of the Auditor-General. The bill makes explicit the Minister’s requirement to observe the rules of natural justice—again, that threshold is very high. The Minister must also publish any removal or suspension in the Gazette.

The member asked who, if by some unfortunate chance that event should occur, will then take up the role. The Deputy Māori Trustee will, if one is appointed by the Māori Trustee; the deputy will pick up delegated responsibilities. It would be very, very unlikely that there would be no deputy in place. So that is the provision that deals with that issue. As I say, I ask the Committee to note the high threshold for removal of the Māori Trustee. If the position is terminated by the Minister of Māori Affairs, the Minister is also in a position to make a new appointment. Thank you.

Hon MITA RIRINUI (Labour) : I congratulate the Hon Georgina te Heuheu, the Associate Minister of Māori Affairs, on rising to her feet to give us a very detailed explanation of her understanding of the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill. I think that it is very appropriate that she should have done that, given that she was one of the three members in this Parliament who was part of the Māori Affairs Committee under the previous Government. The Hon Tau Henare and I were the other two. But it is interesting that although there were two members on the select committee from the same party, their recollection of events, and of the issues raised and interpreted in a number of ways, are quite different. But let me backtrack a little, because I think I can bring a better understanding of the intensity of the discussion that took place at the Māori Affairs Committee when we were considering and deliberating on this particular bill.

There was considerable support for the Māori Trust Office to become a stand-alone organisation, and necessary changes were made to the legislation to ensure that the level of accountability and the responsibilities of the Māori Trustee were very clear in law. But it is a pity that when the opportunity was put before the committee to establish a funding arm to encourage Māori economic development, because of the political differences around the table it basically met with considerable resistance—not on the part of the members of the previous Government but on the part of the members of the previous Opposition. When I say that they are wrong, it is amazing how people from the same party recollect things in different ways, which is what I am going to speak about at this point in time.

The Minister in the chair, the Hon Georgina te Heuheu, did say that that proposal for Māori Business Aotearoa New Zealand, or for a Māori business development organisation, was tagged on as part of the consultation on the review of the Māori Trust Office. If I have misunderstood what the Minister said, I apologise, but I understand that she said that it was a tag-on, and that as a result the members of the Māori Affairs Committee were very, very concerned. But that is not entirely true. In fact, there were submitters who were of the view that it was a cloak-and-dagger approach on behalf of the Government; that was not true, at all. The proposal was raised as part of the consultation for the establishment of Māori Business Aotearoa New Zealand, and put before the select committee. Although the Māori Trustee had his concerns about it, the select committee was required to make its decision, or its views, known, based on the evidence placed before it.

I was one of the Government members at that time on the select committee who was more than satisfied with the level of discussion that had taken place prior to the matter coming before the committee. I would like to say that that was an opportunity that was lost. I concede that there was still a bit more work to be done on the proposal, and the Māori Affairs Committee was in a position to do that. Instead, the Opposition at that time raised the issue strongly enough for the proposal, basically, to be shelved until another day, and I believe that that is what is happening at this point in time. But, as I said before, different members on that committee have different levels of recollection.

I will congratulate the Māori Affairs Committee, because it was a very intense discussion, and people came in support not only of the Māori Trustee being a stand-alone organisation but of the concept of the development of a Māori development organisation out of the pūtea. And that was referred to in this House as the establishment of a slush fund for certain people’s friends. That is a phrase I have not heard in a very, very long time, because I do not believe that it happens any more. A former Minister of Māori Affairs, the Hon Tau Henare, may recall that those things may have happened during his time. But we are now in the 21st century, and those sorts of practices, as I might term them, are no longer apparent with the former Minister of Māori Affairs, and I certainly would say with the current Minister of Māori Affairs—unless he wants to prove me wrong, and I would like to see that happen! But I congratulate the current Minister of Māori Affairs on supporting this bill to this stage, and say that it is also good to hear from the Associate Minister of Māori Affairs, who is currently in the chair, expressing views on this very, very important bill.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) : It is a great pleasure to speak in the Committee stage of the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill. It is important to note that the Labour members opposite are not saying they will vote for the bill; they are doing everything they can to talk about the outlying issues of this legislation, but they will not actually commit to supporting it. They will not say they believe that National is doing the right thing in putting this bill forward with our Māori Party colleagues, and they will not admit that this bill is in the best interests of Māori.

Labour Party members do not see the benefits in establishing the Māori Trustee as a stand-alone organisation. It is important that we do establish it as a stand-alone organisation, because we need to give that degree of accountability and transparency to any Government position, and given the issues that have been so prominent in recent times. In creating that stand-alone position of the Māori Trustee, this bill leads to that transparency and that accountability. The Māori Trustee will be free from political pressure.

The Māori Trustee Amendment Bill provides for better and more open communication between the Māori Trustee and its beneficiaries. The provisions of this bill enable the beneficiaries of the Māori Trustee to be sure they are receiving equal income from the common fund. In all, this bill is a very positive step forward by the National Government, taking into account what can be done in the best interests of Māori. It is very disappointing to see that Labour members cannot stand up and admit to that. They cannot stand up and say that this bill is in the best interests of Māori, and that they will support it. In this legislation, members will see that support, and see the support from the people who see the benefit of having the Māori Trustee as a stand-alone organisation. It is part of the National Government’s commitment to having a strong relationship with Māori.

In this current economic climate, it is important that public entities are seen as transparent and accountable, because difficult times are coming. We need to make sure that the best processes are there for our people going forward. The Māori Trustee Amendment Bill is part of providing that transparency and accountability.

Hon Member: 2 minutes, David.

DAVID BENNETT: It is important to see that Labour members are now trying to create some havoc in this debate. They will not actually stand up and support the bill, or constructively add value to the debate. They talk about what happened in the select committee in past Governments; we look at what is going forward for Māori. This bill will provide a future and a solution to this issue. This bill shows that the Government is listening to the people, is taking on board the issues people see as relevant, and is providing constructive solutions. These solutions are what we need. This is a Government based on solutions that are fair and proper. These solutions take into account that there are issues that need to be dealt with through a Māori Trustee that is open, independent, and not subject to political pressure. That is why we need to have it as a stand-alone organisation. That is what we have achieved through this legislation. I think the National Government and its colleagues can take great credit for the way this issue has moved forward. We now have a situation where the Government will pass legislation that enables there to be a stand-alone organisation to take advantage of the requirements of Māoridom and this community to see that kind of respect and legislative impetus behind it.

This bill includes a few major amendments to the creation of that stand-alone organisation that the Māori Affairs Committee has worked on. It instructs that in exercising authority to terminate the appointment of the Māori Trustee, the Minister must observe the rules of natural justice.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) : Anyone listening to the debate right now should know that that was a second-term Government member—unfortunately from the Waikato but who must have drunk too much water from another catchment. I say to Mr Bennett that if he had listened to the debate, he would have known all too well that the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill as introduced was actually introduced by the previous Labour Government, so that is half of his speech gone. On the second half, about the issue of a stand-alone entity, it is well agreed within this Chamber that people believe that the Māori Trustee should be a stand-alone entity. Really, if Mr Bennett wants to get involved in debates such as this one, he should take a leaf out of the old marae handbook: titiro, whakarongo, then kōrero. He certainly did not do any of that when he talked in this debate; I think his two mates next to him in the Chamber must have given him a big side ball. Anyway, I appreciate his efforts to try to contribute to this debate. We all agree that the Māori Trustee should be a stand-alone office. But this is a Committee stage debate, and Mr Bennett knows well that it is an opportunity to debate the clauses within the bill, not just to talk at some random level. Everybody is being so polite to David Bennett in the Chamber.

Anyway, I want to get back to acknowledging the Minister in the chair, the Hon Georgina te Heuheu. I thank the Minister for taking a call on the issue I raised. It was a very serious question about practicalities, if a termination of a Māori Trustee did occur; there were some practical things that I thought were not as clear as they could have been. Firstly, the issue of termination is a direct matter between the Minister of Māori Affairs and the Māori Trustee. It must occur in writing and the criteria are clearly set out in the bill. The reason I raised the question is that the bill also sets out the basis upon which a delegation occurs, which must be by written authority. The Minister has clarified, in part, that the threshold for termination is very high, and I accept that. But I do think there is the potential for a practical difficulty to occur when a Minister has had reason, perhaps, to suspend the Māori Trustee while an investigation is occurring. During that period of time at which notification occurs, there has not been any authority delegated to the deputy trustee, and it is not clearly expressed in the legislation what happens if, for the practical reason of a time lapse, the Māori Trustee is suspended before a written delegation occurs. That is the nature of the question, but I accept the explanation that the Minister has given, on the basis that it is a high threshold in the first instance. I just invite the Minister to maybe consider that there is a potential loophole there.

Mr Henare made an interesting contribution, as well. I often like to go back to what he said in the Chamber, because holding him accountable is so easy. He said “National fully supports Māori economic development, but don’t go and steal other people’s money to do it.” I re-state that on the record. He says time and time again that “We will privatise services and get people to use their own money instead.” In fact, the Government has convinced the Māori Party that if we privatise prisons it will be a good thing for Māori. Māori can then use their own money to invest in rehabilitation programmes to try to improve the lot of those who unfortunately are in prison. That is the ethos of Mr Henare.

But I have a serious question. I could ask the question of the member directly, or of the Minister. I would prefer to ask the question of the member, because he is the one who raises these types of issues in the Chamber, and because he has been a Minister before. I want to know what assurance that member, as a member of the Government, will give that the retained earnings of the Māori Trustee will not be used by the Government for any other Māori development purpose. Would the member answer that, because I think it is a very important question? Is there a commitment to ring-fence the Māori Trustee’s retained earnings, so that the Government cannot draw down on that for any other development opportunities? There is silence. I could ask the question of the Minister, but out of courtesy I will not. The implication of what Mr Henare said was that the Government will not touch it. The Government will leave it to Māori beneficiaries and not touch it, at all. So I challenge that member to get up in this Chamber and be accountable for the information he gave that the National-led Government will retain the earnings of the Māori Trust Office in its own entity, and will not draw down on it at any point in time in the future for Māori development. I suspect he will find difficulty in answering that question.

HEKIA PARATA (National) : Mr Chair, tēnā koe. Tēnā tātou katoa. I am delighted to rise and take a call on the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill, as this is my first opportunity as a new member of the House to participate in a Committee of the whole House. I will address my attention to Part 1 and specifically to a couple of clauses within it. I would also like to make some general comments in support of this bill.

First, I would like to acknowledge the select committee that did all of this work, and the approach from both sides of the House in attending to this important matter. The key reason for my support of this bill is that it symbolises the coming of age of a very old institution that has been a very important part of Māori development. The bill recognises the need for the Māori Trust Office and the Māori Trustee to be a stand-alone organisation, and to be accountable, transparent, and disciplined in the manner that the functions of that office are discharged. Currently, the Māori Trustee is an employee of a department of the State. The separation of the Māori Trustee from this ambiguous and confusing situation is a really important step away from the State’s constant oversight of all things Māori. The bill represents the long-overdue maturing of the State in terms of respecting the ability of Māori and those in charge of Māori assets to take responsibility for, to organise, and to direct those assets in the interests of the beneficial owners. I am delighted that the Māori Trustee is to become a stand-alone organisation.

Similarly, I am delighted that the bill will update some of the core processes and functions within the Māori Trust Office so that it may be comparable with other like trust entities. Māori beneficial owners may expect, like other beneficial owners of trusts, that they will be well treated, that market conditions will apply, and that there will be transparency and discipline in the way that the functions of the Māori Trustee are carried out. Clauses 9, 9A, and 9B set up a new appropriation account for funds received from the Crown. They also repeal the current sections 19 and 21 of the Maori Trustee Act, which relate to the way that payments by the Māori Trustee can be made. Why are these changes necessary? It is because the Māori Trustee’s existing accounts had been set up for separate, specific purposes that are set out in the statute. The setting up of a new appropriation account for Crown funding will provide transparency, and will enhance accountability to the Crown and to the beneficial owners.

As everyone in this House knows and is aware, under this fresh, new National-led Government there has been a focus on getting greater discipline within State departments, and on ensuring that they are not oversubscribed in terms of the processes but do meet the best professional disciplines possible. This bill gives the opportunity for a very old institution to be brought into modern times. It recognises that banking procedures have moved beyond purely cheque accounts. It recognises that it is possible to take advantage of new banking instruments, and to use the technology that is so much part and parcel of our very secure and stable banking system, which has helped to provide a very strong and resilient foundation to Aotearoa New Zealand during these challenging times of recession. So the changes ensure that the Māori Trustee can operate a very contemporary practice, and, in so doing, can provide a better and more professional service to the beneficial owners of the Māori Trustee.

There are changes in clause 11 to the way in which income from the common fund is to be paid to account holders. Account holders will now be paid what the Māori Trustee receives, less a management fee. Why are the current provisions being changed? At present, the interest rates paid on funds held in trust are set by the Maori Trust Office Regulations 1954—from a time before I was born.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) : The Labour Party supports—we do indeed—the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill. We support changes to establish the Māori Trustee as a stand-alone organisation. At present the Māori Trustee is an office conferred on an employee of Te Puni Kōkiri, as many people have mentioned already this evening. The bill will establish the Māori Trustee as a stand-alone organisation, and we all support separating it from Te Puni Kōkiri. This will underline the independence of the Māori Trustee in carrying out the position’s fiduciary responsibilities. I refer to clause 5, “Independence of Māori Trustee”, which states that “the Māori Trustee must act independently, free from any direction or instruction from the Crown.” I support this, in that it ensures the integrity of the Māori Trustee. It is important that the integrity of the Māori Trustee is not jeopardised just by direction or instruction from the Crown but also by direction or instruction from any organisation. Just by carrying the name “Māori Trustee”—or the name “Māori”—means there is responsibility on the Māori Trustee to be seen to be highly independent and existing right away from any sort of undue influences. There is a saying that Māori have to work twice as hard as other people to be seen to be half as good, so it is really important that the Māori Trustee is seen not to have any bias or favouritism in what it does.

New sections 26 to 26B, substituted in clause 11, relate to money held in the common fund being invested in the fund, and in part section 26(1) states: “and any income derived from investment of the money forms part of the Common Fund.” I want to talk about investing this fund, because particularly at this time of global recession I think that Māori need to be seen to be investing in Māori initiatives. Our tūpuna were entrepreneurs. When Europeans first came to New Zealand it was our ancestors who grew the crops and exported them, and who created an economy that sustained the people. So we have a history of being entrepreneurs, but there are a number of Māori initiatives and Māori businesses that could do with support from the Māori Trustee fund.

We heard today about a really exciting Māori business development in the information technology and broadcasting industry that has been successful internationally, but to sustain the business, research and development investment is needed. It would be really cool if the Māori Trustee were able to invest in that business and help to sustain it and grow it further. A number of Māori businesses up north could do with investment through that fund. I think specifically of relations of mine who are in the honey industry. They are looking for ways to expand and grow their business, to develop it and spread it further, and to look for new markets; the Māori Trustee would be a great way of investing in this Māori-owned business and enterprise. Other successful Māori industries, such as the oyster farms up north, are in jeopardy. They are very successful, but the Northland Regional Council is asking for a $22,000 per hectare bond on those oyster farms. That affects our relations up north, and I can think of one relative, in particular, who has had to fork out $250,000 just on bonds.

TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) : It is a great pleasure to take a call on this important bill, the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill, and Part 1 of it, which we are speaking on. I was sitting in my office looking at the television and I saw my great friend Paul Quinn up on his feet, telling the Opposition what this bill is all about. I was moved enough to walk from the building on the other side of the parliamentary complex and come to the Chamber to support Paul. He is a great speaker.

I make reference to something that others have said earlier—in particular, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, and her concern that the public of New Zealand should know that this was the previous Government’s bill. In fact, all I have heard over the last 5 months is “Here is another one of our bills that we brought forward.” I put this down to the scattergun effect of a re-election strategy on the part of the previous Government. It put up a lot of bills, did nothing at all about them, but pretended it was doing everything so that the world would be a great place. When it was thrown out of Government by the people of New Zealand, it said “This was our bill; we were going to fix this problem.” Labour had its chance, and it did not fix the problems.

Nanaia Mahuta also spoke about the very great member of Parliament for Hamilton, David Bennett, a second-term member who is now in Government. The member was saying she was unsure whether the people of the Waikato were proud that he was representing them. I ask David what his majority was on election night. Did it go up from that of 3 years ago? I think the answer to that is yes, it did. I can confirm to the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, with whom I had the pleasure of sharing a television platform and talking about issues to do with Māori people during the election campaign, that I enjoyed doing that. She spoke a lot of wisdom there and I thought she was a very nice lady; I am not sure whether that is the case today. She has not yet said she will support this bill, but I know she is going to, despite all the excuses she gives us. Nanaia Mahuta spoke about my good friend David Bennett in Hamilton, and she said he had been drinking too much water from the Waikato River. I have been to Hamilton. [Interruption] It was from another catchment, was it? Well, I have been to Hamilton with David Bennett, and I can confirm that that member does not drink water at all.

As I come directly to the bill, and Part 1 of it, I say there are some very important things here, particularly about the way that the Māori Trustee will be appointed. The Minister of Māori Affairs will appoint the Māori Trustee for a period of 5 years. This appointment must be made in writing. Trustees cannot take up the position until they receive their letter. They can be reappointed for other periods of time, up to 5 years. It is important that the legislation states what is to happen in the case that a Government or a Minister has not decided on who may replace a trustee when the 5-year period is up. Let us think about the importance of that in the bill. Let us think about the situation a good 15 years from now, when the members opposite are hoping to weakly limp back into Government. That could be three more appointments of trustees from now. A new Minister who has limped from the Opposition into Government 15 years from now might not be able to make up his or her mind whom to appoint, or what should happen to the important money that is tied up in trust, which the trustee administers on behalf of Māori landowners. What this legislation means is that the trustee would stay in place. The bill specifically says that until a Minister is able to decide who is to be appointed, then upon the termination of his or her appointment the current trustee remains in place and continues to look after the people he or she is responsible for.

When I looked at the Māori Trustee’s website, I saw it makes great comments about Part 1 of this bill. It says the Māori Trustee’s role is to protect and enhance the interests of Māori clients and their resources. That is why it is important that Ministers make good decisions. Let us hope 15 years from now that the Opposition does not limp into Government, because the current Minister of Māori Affairs is going to do a very good job in this area.

It is important that the Māori Trustee is a stand-alone organisation. Why is this important? The Māori Trustee deals with a number of disagreements that have taken place between different agencies and sets those aside, so that those who would benefit from the funds being held in trust can do so. The bill, of course, amends the Maori Trustee Act 1953.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) : I am not sure whether I made the point as clearly as it could have been made, but, for the benefit of the previous speaker, I say the point was not so much about whom to delegate to. The point was that within the way that the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill is written, the process for terminating or suspending the employment of the Māori Trustee is that it has to be in writing between the Minister and the Māori Trustee. The process by which delegated authority occurs is by written delegation. The issue I was raising, if the member was at all interested in the point I raised, was that there could potentially be a time lapse. A meeting with the Minister to inform the Māori Trustee that some issues may have arisen or been brought to the Minister’s attention, and that therefore a suspension is impending, has to be followed through by a written letter. And it may be for practical reasons—or in the court of public opinion things have to happen sooner rather than later—that the Māori Trustee has not written formally greater delegations than those already held by the deputy trustee.

• Progress to be reported presently.

• House resumed.

• The Chairperson reported the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill without amendment and progress on the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill.

• Report adopted.