Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate Senator Murray’s input into this debate and understand to a degree some of his concerns. It is important to have the debate outside the non-controversial legislation time that Senator Murray removed this Public Works Committee Amendment Bill 2006 from. However, I certainly disagree, and the government would disagree, with the amendments that Senator Murray has proposed.

The major features of the bill which Senator Murray has articulated go towards the raising of the threshold—and that is one of the prime concerns—and then placing that threshold change into regulation rather than having an amendment to the act each time we need to raise that threshold. As Senator Murray would acknowledge, I am sure, that is a very common thing to do. When there are consumer price index issues and when amounts are set in legislative form, in the form of an act, it is much more difficult to change. When we can rightly expect that there will be inflationary pressures and other issues as time proceeds requiring us to raise that limit, the best place for that is within the regulation framework.

I would like to comment on some other issues that have been raised. The definition of a public work has now been broadened quite dramatically to prevent scrutiny of matters of major public works being avoided by the parliamentary committee. The widening of the definition is very important and I think it goes some way towards allaying the concerns that have been raised by Senator Murray.

There is another issue, and it is one I think we should always fall back to as one of the basic tenets of the Public Works Act. Any member of parliament, be it a minister, an opposition member or a minor party member of either house, at any stage can refer the matter to the parliament. I think that is where under the proposed legislation any works would be flagged for scrutiny, for whatever reason, and I do not think any reason would occur where it would escape the scrutiny of the committee or the department. I suggest that if any member of parliament is aware of any works at any time they can at least raise that and then it is a matter of public record. That would then give us an indication if the system is not working.

My understanding also is that there is a list of current works undertaken by each government department that is readily available for any member of the public or parliament to scrutinise. That list would also flag the size of works and the dollar value of works, if indeed we thought that those were being missed out from the proper scrutiny of the Public Works Committee.

I think it is also important to mention that matters under the value of $15 million, whilst significant in their own right, have scrutiny within the ambit of the ministerial process and certainly within the senior departmental process. I think that it is right and proper that anything over the value of $15 million in this day and age should be automatically referred to the Public Works Committee and matters below that threshold—and the suggestion is between $6 million and $15 million—would have a discretionary approach from the committee and, I stress again, any public work could be referred by any member of parliament. I think the saving grace in every aspect of this is that those smaller works can be referred to at any stage.

It is also important to place on the record that, since September 2005, 17 projects costing less than $15 million have been reported on. As a member of the Public Works Committee, I think that has been a significant load. Some of those works have been below, or just bearing on, the $6 million threshold. In some instances, if they had been $100,000 or $200,000 less, they may not even have come before the committee. That should allay Senator Murray’s concern about departments or agencies manipulating figures to avoid scrutiny. That would be extremely difficult to do, because some of the figures have been extremely borderline.

I am very much in support of the bill, which goes a long way towards widening the net. We are now having public-private partnership arrangements, which have not been captured completely by the act in the past. The definition of ‘public work’ will also incorporate matters irrespective of the source of revenue or funding, so the value of a project, rather than whether the source of income or revenue is from the government sector, will be the best way of defining it. I commend the bill to the Senate and I hope Senator Murray’s concerns have been allayed somewhat.