Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I will just finish the quote from Mr Tanner, and then I will be able to continue to provide more information for Senator Barnett. Mr Tanner said:

… consultancies are there for unusual occasional things where you need specialist expertise that you can't keep in-house all the time because you don't need it all the time.

The actual expenditure on consultancies reported by the top 40 FMA Act agencies in their annual reports was $463 million. This is over $50 million less than in 2006-07. Government expenditure in 2007-08 and 2008-09 on consultants has reduced by over $130 million compared to the peak under the former government— (Time expired)