Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I will repeat that for the member for Parramatta. We were left to deal with the difficult work of putting the meat on the bones left to us by those opposite. More than 250 other acts make reference to the two predecessor bodies of financial-framework legislation and many of these would be rendered ineffective if consequential legislation were not enacted to align those 250-plus acts to the main PGPA Act before it comes into effect.

Many of the amendments in the consequential bills merely—that is an important word to consider, in the context of this sentence—insert cross-references to the PGPA Act in substitution for all references to the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 and the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act 1997. 'References and cross-references to the FMA and CAC acts required rigorous checking before the bills could be finalised for introduction.'—they did not get that rigorous checking when Labor pushed it through by 1 July 2013.

As the member for Watson himself seemed to acknowledge, this has been a complex and time-consuming task. It has. We are fixing up the mess by Labor. I am sure the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, sitting here beside me, would know all about fixing-up messes left by Labor. He and he alone has probably had the biggest mess to fix up. Most critically, if the PGPA Act cannot commence without these consequential amendments also being made, all current appropriation acts would be rendered ineffective.

The provisions contained in the PGPA Act and bolstered by these amending bills seek to modernise the Commonwealth's current financial-accountability performance and reporting framework, by shifting from a prescriptive compliance based approach to a broad principles based approach based on uniform duties, stronger accountability, better reporting and a focus on risk. That is something we all want to see, as legislators. Traditionally, the high level of scrutiny placed on the work of the Commonwealth public sector and the low level of tolerance for failure has created a culture that limits the ability to engage positively with risk.

These issues have been a frequent point of criticism from the commercial and third sectors when they find themselves joined, in some way, with Commonwealth entities. These reforms acknowledge that acceptance of some risk is necessary to improve performance, allow for more effective joining-up with others and reduce unnecessary administrative burden. An increased focus on risk management and better dialogue on risk issues within government and the parliament will lead to more informed strategic and operational decision making within the public sector.

We heard the member for Watson criticising the Minister for Finance, Senator Cormann. I agree, in some part, with the member for Watson that the Minister for Finance has had a big job to do; a very onerous task. Most of it is concerned with fixing up the debt and deficit-legacy left by Labor: $123 billion of deficit; $667 billion worth of debt, if left unchecked. It is not being left unchecked, because the Minister for Finance, the Treasurer, Mr Hockey, and the rest of the Liberal-Nationals coalition are getting on with the job of fixing the mess left by Labor.

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