Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes; therefore I feel it is my duty to rise after the member for Mallee’s contribution, to speak on the Public Works Committee Amendment Bill 2006. Before the member for Mallee rose I did hear you utter some concern, Mr Deputy Speaker, after the minister indicated the reasons for the amendment. I want to assure you, as a member of the parliament and a former member of the committee, that these amendments are made to make the committee work better and make sure that we put as much effort as we can, in an effective way, into examining the way in which the Commonwealth spends money.

We now have a situation where, because of the $6 million threshold that was introduced into the parliament in the early- to mid-eighties, we are putting as much effort into examining projects that are between $6 million and $8 million or $9 million as we are into projects that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

As the member for Mallee indicated, we had, I think, 22 projects last year, many of which were in that $6 million to $15 million bracket. That is not to say that we should not be inquiring into those. Indeed, we will have the right, as they will be defined as medium works, to continue to inquire into those particular matters. But the fact is that, in real terms, a figure of $15 million for construction is less than the $6 million that was introduced in the mid-eighties. So you could say that in real terms we are reducing the threshold.

The reason we have had to do this is that the committee is—leaving me aside—one of the hardest-working committees in the parliament. It is not a sexy committee—it is not the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade—and it is not a committee that members are always clamouring to be members of, but it is one of the hardest-working committees. I include in that not only the members but also the secretariat and others who assist the committee, because it is a constant effort to keep on top of the workload. There were 22 projects last year and 22 occasions on which the chair tabled reports to the parliament for works undertaken by the Commonwealth. That workload has been increasing as the threshold in real terms has been falling—to the point where it has been almost impossible for the committee to continue its work, putting great strain upon the secretariat and, indeed, committee members, to ensure that they have sufficient members to inquire into these matters.

The strain on the committee is not just because of the number of committee hearings; it is also because of the travel required. Again, I know that some might think it a benefit to travel to what they think are exotic places across this great country to inquire into expenditure, but because our job is one where we are very time-poor in terms of allocating our responsibilities across the year, the requirement on members to give up so much time to travel means that as the workload grows there have been occasions when we have been unable to find the requisite number of members.

I understand that, on the face of it, people may have concerns about the proposition in the amendment before us, because there is clearly an increase in the nominal value of the threshold. But I want to assure members that the amendment arose from the committee’s own concerns. Indeed, the committee had a unanimous view that it had to be changed in order for us to effectively examine whether the Commonwealth was in fact getting value for money when expending the taxpayer’s dollar. It became obvious to us that we should not be spending so much time on small works when there were such large projects spending enormous amounts of the Commonwealth’s capital. I think this amendment will help us properly balance such needs in providing important scrutiny of expenditure from the Commonwealth purse.

While we should also support the other amendment that goes to allowing us to consider certain expenditures under lease arrangements, I should say that we did not go far enough with it. This is the area where I would disagree with the executive government. I am not suggesting that members of the committee do not agree with what I am about to say, but unfortunately we were not able to secure an amendment that would allow us to look at the entire arrangements of these extraordinarily expensive leases.

The day of Commonwealth building, the day of bricks and mortar expenditure, is really over, so we are talking about lease arrangements. We are talking about public-private partnerships in which we can examine only such things as fit-outs, not the actual worth of the leases. So we could have a lease that has a $300 million or $400 million cost to the Commonwealth but we are not in a position to examine—in the same way that we would examine the construction or the fit-out of a particular building—whether that is value for money. I am not sure if there is any committee that properly does so. I am sure Public Accounts would have some capacity to inquire. Indeed, Senate estimates might be able to discuss expenditure that has occurred on a particular lease and examine that, but that is post the signing of the lease; that is after we have entered into a contract that may be for 10 years.

Our predecessors established the Public Works Committee in 1913, as the member for Mallee indicated, when the Commonwealth was building its own buildings. Given that era is over—as it has really been in the last 15 or 20 years that we have been entering into more lease arrangements—it seems important that the executive government allow a joint standing committee like Public Works to examine properly the lease arrangements in their entirety, not just the fit-outs that are involved in the lease arrangements. That would be an important thing for the executive government to consider. I know that the committee itself certainly raised our concerns about our inability to examine the large contracts that the Commonwealth enters into to lease accommodation, and I think there is some work to be done to ensure that those large contracts are properly examined by the parliament and not entered into only by the executive government. To that extent I think we still have some way to go.

To that extent I also support the sentiments if not the actual reasoning of Senator Murray, who spoke about the amendments in the other place. I do not agree with some of the points he raised but I think his sentiments were correct when he warned the parliament not to allow executive governments not to provide proper opportunities for the parliament to scrutinise the expenditure of the executive.

So there is some way to go and I think the government should seriously consider what we are to do with these lease arrangement contracts that are not being examined. It is not just for the parliament; it is also for the executive government. One thing about the Joint Standing Committee on Public Works is that, once Public Works approves a work because of an inquiry, we have given some protection to the minister or the department. Effectively, the minister can now say: ‘This matter was referred. The department did refer the matter to the Joint Standing Committee on Public Works. Public Works has inquired, has examined, has called for witnesses, has met on the location, has taken evidence under oath and has reported to the parliament.’ That provides protection to the executive government. So the executive government should not feel threatened about scrutiny. Indeed, they should feel that there is some benefit not only for the public at large, who want us to ensure that Commonwealth expenditure is being spent properly, but also for them.

That is the one caveat I have in relation to the amendments: they are not broad enough. They do go to the fit-outs of large leases, and that is an improvement; however, they have not gone as far as they should.

I also concur with the comments made by the member for Mallee in relation to the way in which the Public Works Committee operates. In fact, as a former member, Mr Deputy Speaker Hatton, I am sure you know that the committee is consensual by nature. I do not know when that began. I do not know whether, in fact, it has been partisan for periods of time and then on occasions consensual. It does not mean there are not times when people get a little nervous about particular matters and, of course, I do not want people to feel that any opposition member wants to play rubber-stamp to executive government.

One of the reasons why there is a consensual attitude on the committee is that it is easy for the opposition members of the committee to stand up to decisions of the executive government if they think those decisions are bad. It is harder for government members to do that, and I think the only reason why there is a consensual approach is that the government members—and I am sure that would have been the case when Labor was in government—are willing to stand up to decisions they think are wrong or do not fulfil the objectives of the Public Works Committee Act. Without the government members doing that, the opposition members would probably be less likely to work in such a cohesive and consensual way.

For whatever reason, it seems to me that the committee works together and has done some very important things, even in recent times. For example, the committee unanimously opposed the work of the extension of the Maribyrnong detention centre. It was a very controversial topic. The brief by the department was that the extension was to make the accommodation more humane. It was the unanimous view of the committee that the department’s own objectives would not be fulfilled. It would not make the Maribyrnong detention centre more humane because, for example, it was going to increase the detainees accommodated in each room. I applaud, in particular, the chair and the member for Mallee, and all government members who felt strongly enough about it to make that decision to unanimously reject the proposition made by the department.

Whilst we did not end up with a perfect solution—with the committee refusing to accept the recommendation or the position of the department—there is no doubt that that construction was improved because the Public Works Committee members were willing to look at the objects of the project and realised that they were not consistent with the provisions of the act. That has ensured that detainees, if they were to be held in Maribyrnong detention centre, would be better off. That was exactly the department’s objective, but it was not coming through in the project itself.

One former member of the Public Works Committee has followed another into the chair. Mr Deputy Speaker Lindsay, you are a former member—it is a big club, the members and former members of the Public Works Committee—so you would be well aware that the committee works cohesively. In fact, I was recently in your electorate in relation to a project, and you spoke to the committee about that project. The committee travels a lot. As I said earlier, it is a very busy committee. We do tend to work together and that is important. In the end, though, we had to lift the threshold because, as I said earlier, the works were becoming unmanageable. It was important to adjust the $6 million threshold to take into account inflation. Along the way, we also ensured that fit-outs of lease contracts would also be under the purview of the Public Works Committee—and that was an improvement.

I will finish by repeating that, in my view, one further amendment is required. We need to broaden the Public Works Act to ensure that we have purview over lease arrangements that are entered into by the Commonwealth. Sometimes lease arrangements run into hundreds of millions of dollars. It is therefore important that this proposition be incorporated into the legislation so that there can be proper examination of the expenditure of that money.

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