Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support) Share this | Hansard source

I must admit I am completely flabbergasted with the proposition in this matter of public importance. When I first read it, I have to confess that I thought it was referring to the Howard government and that we were missing a word there because of the extraordinary record of mishandling of public finance by the Howard government. But no, it turns out the opposition are talking about the Rudd government. It is just another example of the depths of hypocrisy to which they continue to sink to in avoidance of a real, fair dinkum debate about the economy, demonstrating their continuing progress towards irrelevance on this essential economic debate.

It is worth while examining their credibility in the administration of public finances. It is quite an interesting story when we look at their track record in this respect. It seems that not a week passes without another ANAO report coming out which refers to yet some more interesting statistics and information about the Howard government’s administration of public finances. I recall that just recently there was a report released on the Howard government’s advertising expenditure. It makes very interesting reading and is particularly interesting for me because it related to the role of the Special Minister of State, as he was then, in administration of those matters. I remind the House that that report highlighted that between July 1995 and November 2007 more than $1.8 billion was spent on government advertising and nearly half of those outlays occurred in the last four years. In 2007, government departments and agencies spent $254 million on campaign advertising. I remind the House that in 2008 under the Rudd government that expenditure was slashed to $86.6 million. That is a saving of close to $170 million.

But I do not want the House to listen to me on this. I think we should go to a more independent commentator on that Australian National Audit Office report. On 13 March this year, Bernard Keane had some interesting comments to make on the ANAO report and in particular on the Ministerial Committee on Government Communications, which was chaired by the Special Minister of State. The audit report really focused on that mechanism because, in reality, the MCGC was not supposed to have the authority to spend money on advertising. That was supposed to lie with individual ministers and department officials with delegated powers to spend money. But the MCGC made many decisions about advertising campaigns, often overriding advice from the departments. This is what the ANAO focused on. The MCGC was spending money with no authorisation. This was a matter on which the ANAO received explicit advice from the Australian Government Solicitor. They received comments from the former Special Minister of State, who said that, because the relevant portfolio ministers attended each meeting of the MCGC, in effect it ensured the decision was being made by someone with authorisation to do so. The ANAO very politely, as Bernard Keane commented, said in a footnote that as part of the audit they examined the complete records of 63 of 66 MCGC meetings held about the campaigns and extracts of the records of the remaining three meetings. The ANAO found no evidence that portfolio ministers attended MCGC meetings.

It was very interesting that the ANAO were interested in the Work Choices advertising campaign. We all remember that Work Choices campaign. What a wonderful expenditure of government money! I show exhibit A just to remind us of that wonderful investment of public money. We must remind ourselves that $120 million was wasted on that campaign. Bernard Keane pointed out that the MCGC ensured that the Liberal Party’s closest friends in the advertising industry got in on the action. None of the tenders for the Work Choices campaigns was put to the market, Bernard said. He said they were either offered by invitation or given directly to a firm without tendering and that only one of the eight major contracts was the subject of a proper assessment as is required under the web of accountability. It is also interesting to note the comments that Bernard made—

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