Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Committee on Public Accounts and Audit I am pleased to present the following reports: Report 452 Natural disaster recovery; Centrelink telephone services; and Safer Streets program, review of Auditor-General reports Nos 24 to 50 2014-15 and report 453: Development of the Commonwealth performance frameworkand I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.

Leave granted.

I present report 453 from the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit entitled the Development of the Commonwealth performance framework. This report constitutes the JCPAA's first report into its oversight of the Department of Finance's development and advancement of the Public Management Reform Agenda following the passage of the Public Governance Performance and Accountability Act.

The Commonwealth Performance Framework is part of a broader reform agenda and is designed to help improve the performance of Australian government entities while also providing stakeholders with the ability to better assess entity performance over time. Through the inquiry, the committee sought to ensure that the rules, directions and guidance that underpin the framework facilitated scrutiny and provided clarity to entities regarding performance monitoring and reporting expectations.

We found, overall, that the framework was robust and was an improvement on the previous system. We note that many performance information requirements have now been elevated to legislative rules or have been made official directions from the Secretary of the Department of Finance. We commend Finance on this achievement.

We did, however, find several ways the framework could be improved. We recommended that Finance provide better examples in its guidance to entities and that Finance develop a mechanism to centrally monitor, report and evaluate both the framework and the broader Public Management Reform Agenda.

We also considered several iterations of a proposed direction prepared by Finance seeking to change the way performance reporting information is presented to the parliament in portfolio budget statements or the PBS. Several public hearings on this matter were held and the committee sought to ensure that detailed performance information was required in the interests of transparency and to assist parliamentary consideration of the budget.

Accordingly, we recommended that the direction require:

We further recommended that Finance investigate ways that Senate estimates committees might be provided with updated draft corporate plans, conditional on budget appropriation, following the tabling of each budget proposal.

The committee will focus on entity compliance with Finance's directions and guidance, in this area, in the future and will seek to confer with Senate estimates committees to ensure that there is an improvement rather than a reduction in the quality of information made available to members and senators through the budget consideration and estimates processes. More broadly, the JCPAA will continue to oversee the development of the public management reform agenda and looks forward to continuing to work with Finance in this area over the coming years.

I would like to thank my fellow committee members and my deputy chair, the member for Charlton, and would also like to acknowledge the support of the secretariat. I would also like to thank the Department of Finance and the Australian National Audit Office for their focused engagement during the committee's inquiry.

Finally, I extend my thanks to the other agencies, organisations and individuals who contributed to the inquiry through submissions or by providing evidence at the public hearings. I commend the report to the House.

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to add some comments.

Leave granted.

I briefly want to talk about one of the audits contained in this report, and that is the Safer Streets program, which was a $50 million election commitment from the coalition—and I understand that. But, unfortunately, it did contain some outrageous cases of pork barrelling, and to fund the program they took funding off some excellent projects that would have made Australian towns and suburbs safer, such as Sunshine in Melbourne. This program was particularly concerning because of the poor administration by the Attorney-General's Department. The ANAO found that 60 per cent of applications did not meet the eligibility requirements yet were still funded, 28 projects did not provide a quote yet were rated as satisfactory for financial information, and one project received funding for CCTVs that were installed 11 months before the project funding agreement was executed. The ANAO also found that the department did not manage its conflicts of interest at all well. These were concerns that were echoed during the committee's hearings, and I hope that the department lifts its game in this area.

Of the 81 projects that received funding, 78 per cent were in coalition seats and another nine per cent were in multiple electorates, which included coalition seats. So, 87 per cent of the funding of the projects went to coalition seats. The funding round was supposed to be restricted to only election commitments, yet seven projects where no announcements were made before the election received funding, including one in the electorate of the member for Petrie, where the only evidence was that the member for Petrie spoke to the minister in May 2014 and somehow received funding. Equally concerning was the fact that six projects were removed, of which four were subject to clear election commitments before the last election, and those four were all in Labor-held seats.

I do not dispute the ability of parties to make election funding commitments and for governments to commit and deliver that funding. The key issue is how you quarantine that funding from other funding streams so that you can deliver that election commitment without bringing additional projects in or excluding projects that were committed to. That is why there is a very important recommendation in that chapter about how the Commonwealth grant guidelines deal with this very complex issue that both sides of politics will face in the future.

I will finish by thanking the committee chair, the member for Groom, and the rest of the committee for dealing with these matters which are partisan in nature in a very constructive way of trying to take the heat out of it and ask how we can improve public administration of grants that were made in an election context. I also thank the secretariat for their always-excellent work. Thank you.

Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House take note of report 453.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.