Latest news with #ParliamentBill
Scoop
5 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
The House: Parliamentary Agency Resources Under Pressure
Parliament risks being overwhelmed by an increase in public engagement on bills, Clerk of the House David Wilson told MPs this week. Wilson, along with Speaker Gerry Brownlee and Parliamentary Service Chief Executive Rafael Gonzalez Montero, joined the Governance and Administration Committee on Wednesday. The event was part two-albeit a month late-of the Estimates hearing for the Office of the Clerk and the Parliamentary Service. Brownlee is not a cabinet minister, but even so, he is the minister responsible (as Speaker) for Parliament's agencies, the Office of the Clerk (OOC), and the Parliamentary Service (PS). He oversees the PS but the OOC is independent. Much of Wednesday's hearing was focused on a perceived strain on the OOC's staff and resources. The source of that strain has apparently come from the increase of three things: the increased use of urgency, the number of public submissions on bills, and the amount of scrutiny by select committees. Such technical, behind-the-scenes parliamentary issues are dry but crucial to the effective oversight and transparency of government, and to participation in the law-making process. Both are sacrosanct to a functioning democracy. Wilson said the Office of the Clerk currently has the resources to cope with the aggregate demand for its services. His concern though, is being able to cope with a potential "new norm" of having unprecedented submissions on bills, which he said they would "really struggle to deal with". "We can deal with one or two bills that attract a huge amount of public interest [but] we couldn't deal with those simultaneously, though, with current resources," Wilson said. So would such a shift mean that some public submissions will not be able to be processed because the Office of the Clerk wouldn't have the capacity? There is potential mitigation on the horizon in the form of the Parliament Bill, which is currently waiting for its second reading. While not a silver-bullet, the law change would enable Wilson to make a case directly to Parliament for sufficient resourcing to deal with the increased scale of submissions, and not rely on the discretion of the Minister of Finance. Double the scrutiny, half the resource The current session of Parliament changed how select committees scrutinised Government spending and performance. This included the introduction of two dedicated scrutiny weeks a year (one for Estimates and one for Annual Review), longer hearings and cross examinations, and more for committees to report. All that extra scrutiny increases labour and time costs. Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March expressed concern about whether Parliament has the resources to do justice to the new arrangements. "The feedback we have received [is] that there's a genuine trade-off that happens with increased scrutiny and ability to produce substantive reports," he said. Wilson said it's a matter of priorities. "More so than previously, there is the need to weigh up where the energy and attention of the committee and therefore the staff are going to focus... If you're doubling the amount of time spent on scrutiny, there's not double the amount of resource to support that," he said. Other than hoping for respite from the Parliament Bill's new funding mechanism, MPs could also propose changes to Parliament's rules and processes in the Standing Orders Review, which happens at the end of each Parliamentary term. That would be expected to occur in 2026. Brownlee, who chairs the Standing Orders Committee, suggested this as a method for countering the increased strain on Parliament's staff and resources. He told MPs on Wednesday the trend is that there are more submissions on all bills at the moment than there has been in the past. "I think it's for the Standing Orders Committee of Parliament to make some decisions around that, so if you've got some ideas, then feed them in," Brownlee said. * RNZ's The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament's Office of the Clerk.
Scoop
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
‘New Security Service' For Parliament Would Have More Powers
Parliament's security guards will receive training later this year to prepare for potential additional powers. Lillian Hanly, Political reporter Parliament's security guards will receive training later this year to prepare for potential additional powers. The Parliament Bill is up for a second reading and would give the guards statutory powers of 'consent search, denial of entry, temporary seizure of specified items, and temporary detention.' Parliamentary Services chief executive Raf Gonzalez-Montero told the Governance and Administration scrutiny hearing yesterday they were taking that responsibility 'very seriously'. Police and the Ministry of Justice were assisting with the training, which is expected to begin in December, with the first guards certified around March or April next year. As part of the hearing – which allows MPs to scrutinise funding decisions – Gonzalez-Montero mentioned the Parliamentary Service focusing on embedding the 'new security service' for members. During the election they trialled that service, which he said was 'well-received'. It was now an established service and they will have staff that are able to travel with MPs when they have functions or gatherings 'just to keep them safe', Gonzalez-Montero said. He said a review of the security system overall will also be taking place, with some gaps between 'when a member is a member, and when a member is a minister'. 'There are things that need to be tightened up in that ecosystem.' Gonzalez-Montero told MPs the parliamentary service was also investigating options to increase the ability to monitor social media to address what had been seen this year, which was 'digital harm' against MPs. He said he wanted to make sure whatever service was chosen to respond the issue was 'fit for purpose' for members. Other issues in Parliament Other questions in the hearing focused on the issue of infrastructure and accessibility, as well as Parliament's capacity to fulfil its democratic responsibilities. The Greens' Lawrence Xu-Nan asked about a key lift in the Parliament building, which, when out of order, means a key route for wheelchairs is inaccessible. Gonzalez-Montero said he agreed, if the lift was out of service, 'that would be a big problem for us.' He said he would love nothing more than to fix those things, but it required funding. He had a wish list to create a ramp for the entry to Parliament, rather than just having the stairs, or having to use different lifts. 'Unfortunately, those things are very expensive, and we haven't yet had the money to fix those things. 'We'll keep it on our radar, keep doing the things that we can within the budget that will allow us.' He pointed out they'd received funding this year for the infrastructure of the buildings, 'so the sprinkler systems, things that fail, things like the lift.' But he said last year was the lift's 'end of life' and it hadn't previously been budgeted as something that needed fixing, 'we were lucky this year we got funding.' 'That is the juggling we do all the time. 'So we've got a list of things that we focus on fixing, and then something pops up, and then we say, well, something's going to have to come out of that list for us to fix the lift.' The funding the service had been receiving was at 2005 levels, he said, and things go up in price and 'every year we're able to do less.' He said a lot more upgrades in terms of infrastructure will be needed in future. The Beehive needed a lot of work, 'it's a very old building,' he said. 'Pretty much all the buildings here are in in dire need of fixes, strengthening and upgrading.' Clerk of the House of Representatives Dr David Wilson also fronted the committee and was asked by Labour's Glen Bennett about parliament's 'ability to operate'. Bennett noted the Office of the Clerk had said there were 'a lot of challenges in terms of workload' and asked how that was being managed in order to provide MPs with what they needed, as well as the public when it came to 'scrutiny and transparency'. Wilson said he was confident the Office of the Clerk would be able to do that. The increase in funding they'd received wasn't a 'vast sum of money' he said, but it did 'make a difference.' 'It enables us to retain the staff that are hard to attract, but also to take on additional staff when we need to, for example, when we have bills with large numbers of public submissions, we can temporarily embrace the workforce to deal with that.' This was notable during the submissions to the Treaty Principles Bill, where the committee received 300,000 online submissions, half of which were received on the last day. Submissions were re-opened due to technical issues so people who had issues were able to submit. Some complaints have been made during the submission process to the Regulatory Standards Bill this week. Wilson told RNZ they were aware of a technical issue with the Parliament website, which was being worked on. 'The issue is affecting the whole website.'
Scoop
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
'New Security Service' For Parliament Would Have More Powers
Parliament's security guards will receive training later this year to prepare for potential additional powers. The Parliament Bill is up for a second reading and would give the guards statutory powers of "consent search, denial of entry, temporary seizure of specified items, and temporary detention." Parliamentary Services chief executive Raf Gonzalez-Montero told the Governance and Administration scrutiny hearing yesterday they were taking that responsibility "very seriously". Police and the Ministry of Justice were assisting with the training, which is expected to begin in December, with the first guards certified around March or April next year. As part of the hearing - which allows MPs to scrutinise funding decisions - Gonzalez-Montero mentioned the Parliamentary Service focusing on embedding the "new security service" for members. During the election they trialled that service, which he said was "well-received". It was now an established service and they will have staff that are able to travel with MPs when they have functions or gatherings "just to keep them safe", Gonzalez-Montero said. He said a review of the security system overall will also be taking place, with some gaps between "when a member is a member, and when a member is a minister". "There are things that need to be tightened up in that ecosystem." Gonzalez-Montero told MPs the parliamentary service was also investigating options to increase the ability to monitor social media to address what had been seen this year, which was "digital harm" against MPs. He said he wanted to make sure whatever service was chosen to respond the issue was "fit for purpose" for members. Other issues in Parliament Other questions in the hearing focused on the issue of infrastructure and accessibility, as well as Parliament's capacity to fulfil its democratic responsibilities. The Greens' Lawrence Xu-Nan asked about a key lift in the Parliament building, which, when out of order, means a key route for wheelchairs is inaccessible. Gonzalez-Montero said he agreed, if the lift was out of service, "that would be a big problem for us." He said he would love nothing more than to fix those things, but it required funding. He had a wish list to create a ramp for the entry to Parliament, rather than just having the stairs, or having to use different lifts. "Unfortunately, those things are very expensive, and we haven't yet had the money to fix those things. "We'll keep it on our radar, keep doing the things that we can within the budget that will allow us." He pointed out they'd received funding this year for the infrastructure of the buildings, "so the sprinkler systems, things that fail, things like the lift." But he said last year was the lift's "end of life" and it hadn't previously been budgeted as something that needed fixing, "we were lucky this year we got funding." "That is the juggling we do all the time. "So we've got a list of things that we focus on fixing, and then something pops up, and then we say, well, something's going to have to come out of that list for us to fix the lift." The funding the service had been receiving was at 2005 levels, he said, and things go up in price and "every year we're able to do less." He said a lot more upgrades in terms of infrastructure will be needed in future. The Beehive needed a lot of work, "it's a very old building," he said. "Pretty much all the buildings here are in in dire need of fixes, strengthening and upgrading." Clerk of the House of Representatives Dr David Wilson also fronted the committee and was asked by Labour's Glen Bennett about parliament's "ability to operate". Bennett noted the Office of the Clerk had said there were "a lot of challenges in terms of workload" and asked how that was being managed in order to provide MPs with what they needed, as well as the public when it came to "scrutiny and transparency". Wilson said he was confident the Office of the Clerk would be able to do that. The increase in funding they'd received wasn't a "vast sum of money" he said, but it did "make a difference." "It enables us to retain the staff that are hard to attract, but also to take on additional staff when we need to, for example, when we have bills with large numbers of public submissions, we can temporarily embrace the workforce to deal with that." This was notable during the submissions to the Treaty Principles Bill, where the committee received 300,000 online submissions, half of which were received on the last day. Submissions were re-opened due to technical issues so people who had issues were able to submit. Some complaints have been made during the submission process to the Regulatory Standards Bill this week. Wilson told RNZ they were aware of a technical issue with the Parliament website, which was being worked on. "The issue is affecting the whole website."
