Tuesday, January 21, 2025



Finally

Back in March, Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier resigned after hitting the age limit for his office. And now, almost a year later, parliament has finally gotten around to appointing a replacement:

John Richard Allen is likely to take over the role of chief ombudsman from Peter Boshier, who still has the job despite a law requiring his resignation at age 72.

Boshier resigned after his 72nd birthday on 16 March last year, but was asked to stay on while a replacement was found.

The Officers of Parliament Committee had recommended Allen as a replacement in the role, which was an independent position tasked with investigating complaints about administrative actions at all levels of government and ensuring proper public access to official information.

The committee is made up of MPs from all parties in Parliament, and Allen's appointment had unanimous support.

Which is good, but the obvious question is "what took them so long"? Because while Boshier's statutory retirement apparently took the whole political system by surprise, resulting in policy by panic, the officers of parliament committee began its inquiry back in March. They should have had a suitable candidate in September. Instead, with, we've gone almost a year with only a "pretty legal" temporary appointment to one of our core constitutional offices. The public deserved better than that.

The good news is that unlike many of National's recent appointees Allen isn't a crony or obviously unsuitable for the position. Hopefully he'll do the job well.