Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I first give a generic answer to the shadow minister’s question. I will endeavour to go through them item by item. Apologies if I miss any; feel free to remind me of them. First, it is correct to say that the Minister for Finance and Deregulation has responsibility that encompasses government waste and use of taxpayers’ money, but that is a responsibility that is shared with other government ministers. As I am sure the shadow minister, as a former minister, would understand, there are things called the Financial Management and Accountability Act and the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act which govern the arrangements that apply here with regard to the responsibilities for managing the spending of government money with respect to both the finance minister and individual ministers. So there is, in effect, a shared responsibility with a specific role for the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, but other ministers also inevitably have responsibilities that are crucial to this overall approach.

First with respect to the question arising from the book that he refers to, obviously I do not make public comments about things I am alleged to have said or not said in cabinet or cabinet committee deliberations, and that remains my position. I can only refer him to a quote that I did provide the authors of the book, which was along the lines that I brought to these discussions, as you would expect, a traditional finance minister’s responsibility of seeking to test propositions that were put to me. I would say of any spending proposals that I see that as a central part of my responsibility, to undertake that testing or challenging of any proposals, whether inside committee decision-making processes or indeed matters that are put to me bilaterally by ministers. That is essentially my job. But otherwise I do not comment on the deliberations of cabinet or cabinet committees.

With respect to the specific matters that the shadow minister did raise, there are some matters that are more specifically within the purview of individual ministers rather than me as minister for finance. I will endeavour to go through them one by one with that caveat. First on the computers in schools program, as you would be aware, there has been a set of negotiations with state governments about the process. That did lead to some modification compared with the original election commitment. We are fulfilling the election commitment but nonetheless in order to reach agreement with the states there was an additional financial commitment involved there.

Second, with respect to consultancies, the statement in the question from the shadow minister is incorrect. In fact, spending on consultancies across the government in calendar year 2008 and again in calendar year 2009 is substantially lower than it was in calendar year 2007 under the Howard government. The fall in expenditure in calendar year 2008 was about $65 million. All these are on-the-record figures and I would suggest that the shadow minister not be misled by highly distorted material that has been published in the Australian. All these things are a matter of public record, that there has been very clear and substantial reduction in spending on consultancies under the Rudd government.

Third, on the question of the broadband proposals, the shadow minister will probably recall that the then opposition went to the election with a commitment to a fibre-to-the-node proposal for a broadband network which involved optical fibre going to nodes in individual streets rather than all the way to individual households and businesses. You will be aware that the tender process for that did not produce a successful outcome, partly because it ended up occurring very much at the peak of the global financial crisis and a number of potential bidders were undoubtedly disadvantaged by the fact that the availability of capital for things of this nature was inevitably constrained given the circumstances. The government, confronted with this situation, chose to move in effect to what was always seen as the logical next step, although no previous commitment had been made to do this. The government chose the logical next step of building a fibre-to-the-premises network. (Extension of time granted)

On the question of the Building the Education Revolution primary school buildings, I am not aware of the two or three specific instances that the shadow minister alleges that buildings that cost four times the equivalent being built in the private sector were constructed. The shadow minister would be aware that there is currently a taskforce headed by former UBS CEO Brad Orgill examining all of these questions. I am happy to rely on the report that emerges from that taskforce in terms of the issues that have been raised here. We do accept that in a situation where you have got thousands upon thousands of individual projects all around the country the nature of the construction sector is such that every now and then there will be disputes and there will be problems. We regard the prospect that there will be individual issues of this kind as something that is an unavoidable aspect of having so many individual construction projects.

We do not necessarily accept some of the assertions that have been published. In my experience, the descriptions that have been published that I have looked at in some detail, almost invariably, have been somewhat at odds with the facts or have been selective in the use of facts. There have been aspects of the picture that have been not been referred to that would clearly modify any reasonable balanced assessment of the claims being made.

Finally, I would suggest that the border protection questions are probably better directed to the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship because the basis for forward estimates and the numbers of prospective claims is something that is very much a matter for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

I would also draw the shadow minister’s attention to instances in the past where there have been much smaller estimates put in place that have been, shall we say, out distanced by the actual number of arrivals, instances from the time that the Howard government was in office. I refer him to the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship on the question of estimating, for forward estimates purposes, the number of arrivals.

See this speech in context