The Clerk of Parliament in the Cook Islands, Nga Valoa, says he disagrees with a call by the head of the 1998 Cook Islands Reform Commission for some services in parliament to be scrapped.
Iaveta Short, who is now a Rarotonga-based lawyer, says the present practice of translating all speeches in parliament into English or Cook Islands Maori and having them recorded by Hansard reporters are of limited value to the country.
Mr Short says efforts to cut costs in government should not be confined to looking at MPs salaries.
But Mr Valoa says permanent records are crucial to maintaining a constitution.
"The records of parliament are important. Think about the libraries, the universities they contributing to get their set of the Hansards for reference purposes and if you go to other parliaments you will see that they value their records even dating back for hundreds of years."
Nga Valoa
