Chief Ombudsman Releases Final Report

Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier has released his final report to Parliament before he leaves Office tomorrow (28 March).

It is customary for the Chief Ombudsman to release a final report before they leave Office.

‘The Way I See It, Report by the Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier, December 2015 – March 2025, on leaving Office’ contains his personal thoughts on the jurisdiction and constitutional position of the Ombudsman in New Zealand.

Excerpt from the introduction

It has become a tradition for an Ombudsman, on leaving office, to write a report to share some personal thoughts on the jurisdiction and constitutional position of the Ombudsman in New Zealand as they’ve seen it.

Society has undergone such rapid change since the Ombudsman’s Office was first established in New Zealand 62 years ago, and each of my predecessors have faced a unique set of challenges.

This is an opportunity for me, as New Zealand’s 8th Chief Ombudsman, to outline some of my own challenges over the past nine years. It is also a chance to talk about how the role is fundamental to New Zealand’s constitutional framework, yet it’s constantly evolving – which it needs to in order to stay relevant for our country.

This isn’t a personal memoir. Rather, it is my take on how we’ve been doing—it’s more like a school report. This is the way I see it.

I came into this role after a long career in the judiciary, having first been appointed as a Judge back in 1988. As an Ombudsman, I’ve been able to focus on fairness and reasonableness—rather than be tied to pleadings and evidence—I think this is one of the role’s key strengths. I felt, as a Judge, that justice didn’t always deliver fairness and that many went without redress.

An Ombudsman is much more inquisitorial, and is able to get to the heart of the matter. The most important task of any Ombudsman is to find out what has happened, but also why that has happened. And if any recommendations need to be made, even if it’s simply to provide greater clarity and explanation, or a more prescriptive remedy, people’s mana should always be recognised and protected. That is why the New Zealand Ombudsman’s motto, Tuia kia ōrite | Fairness for all, sums it up for me.

Read the report here: