Page 3075 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 August 2013
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… ultimately the key determinant of such Officers is their connection with Parliament, rather than the executive. Parliament has the potential to act as more than simply the arena for party government. Therefore, it is the nature and scope of that relationship between Officers and Parliament which is central to the constitutional uniqueness and importance of being an Officer’.
Robert Buchanan in his examination of Australia and New Zealand officers of the parliament said:
An officer of a parliament performs functions of a parliamentary nature, for parliament’s benefit.
The nature of the functions that the Auditor-General, Ombudsman and Electoral Commission fulfil to help ensure the accountability of the executive and the representative character of the Assembly are more appropriately characterised as a function of the legislature rather than the executive, and as such it is appropriate to recognise the special relationship that each has with the Assembly by making them officers of the Assembly.
Members will recall that during the last Assembly the public accounts committee and the administration and procedure committee both separately recommended that the Auditor-General become an officer of the Assembly. The commonwealth Auditor-General is recognised as an officer of the parliament, as is the Auditor-General in New Zealand.
We all agree that the Auditor-General fulfils a vital role and that that role cannot be properly characterised as part of the executive. Together with the reforms to the Auditor-General Act passed by the Assembly last week, the changes proposed in this bill will guarantee the independence of the Auditor-General and further enhance the integrity of the office of Auditor-General.
The Ombudsman performs a vital role in ensuring the accountability of government agencies, both by responding to complaints from members of the community and by conducting own-motion investigations into issues of concern to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman’s website describes the role of the Ombudsman as:
An ombudsman is an official, usually (but not always) appointed by the government or parliament, who is charged with representing the interests of the public by investigating and addressing complaints reported by individual citizens. The modern meaning arose from its use in Sweden with the Parliamentary Ombudsman instituted in 1809 to safeguard the rights of citizens by establishing a supervisory agency independent of the executive branch.
It continues:
The concept of the ombudsman as an independent person who can investigate and resolve disputes between citizens and government has spread to over 120 countries and is seen to be an essential accountability mechanism in democratic societies.
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