Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

The nong opposite asks: which departmental advice asked me to breach cabinet confidence? He asks me to break the law, which says a lot about where they are coming from. We know that when it comes to departmental advice there is one section in my department in particular—the Regional Development Section—that stands out as a hallmark of what their attitude was to departmental advice. The Australian National Audit Office found, in volume 1, page 20, that the manner in which the program had been administered over the three-year period to 30 June 2006, examined by ANAO, had fallen short of an acceptable standard of public administration. On pages 35 and 36 they said:

A feature of the program’s administration ... was the frequency with which practices departed from the published program guidelines and documented internal procedures. This was reflected in funding being approved for projects notwithstanding the absence of a completed Regional Partnerships application or a departmental assessment against the program criteria, and departmental assessments being truncated or fast tracked or assessment procedures not being rigorously applied such that DOTARS did not adequately scrutinise applications before providing advice to ministers; projects being approved for funding notwithstanding that one or more criteria had not been satisfied; ministerial funding decisions being taken or advisory processes other than those provided for in the program guidelines in procedures advice to applicants.

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Of particular note in these respects was the significantly higher tempo of funding appli-cations, project approvals and announcements that occurred in the eight months leading up to the calling of the 2004 federal election compared to the remainder of the three years examined by the ANAO. A surge in grant approvals and announcements occurred during this period notwithstanding that many of the projects recommended and approved for funding were underdeveloped such as they did not demonstrably satisfied the program assessment criteria.

On 2 February 2004 the former Prime Minister announced his government would commit $845,000 to the Peel Region Tourist Railway. Funding was to be provided from the Regional Partnerships program. The only problem was that no application had even been submitted. They did not get around to signing a contract until 24 January 2007. It was an absolute farce. The first payment of $517,000 was made on 2 February 2007, exactly three years after Mr Howard’s announce-ment, except that only four days later the rail line burnt down. Did the Commonwealth get back its money? No. But we know that is consistent with the 51-minute spending spree before the 2004 caretaker election mode. Former parliamentary secretary De-Anne Kelly approved 16 projects worth $3.3 million.

But it is not just that. With regard to the ARTC, the Audit Office found that the government managed hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds just before June each year. They made three special grant payments: $450 million in June 2004, $100 million in June 2005 and $270 million in June 2006. The Audit Office says the payments were ‘in the context of assisting to reduce higher than expected budget surpluses’. So if they think there is going to be a surplus they just shovel the money out the door. Note: there was no proper departmental advice, there were no contracts, there were no funding arrangements or documented governance arrangements that required the ARTC to use the $820 million on any particular projects or in any particular time frame. That is what the Audit Office found about the way that they dealt with public funds. We on this side of the House have produced an economically irresponsible budget—I should have said res-ponsible budget: an economically responsible budget. Those opposite stand condemned for the fact that they have thrown out any economic credibility whatsoever. (Time expired)

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