Parliament guards would get statutory powers of "consent search, denial of entry, temporary seizure of specified items, and temporary detention" under a new bill. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
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."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
