Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State and Scrutiny of Government Waste) Share this | Hansard source

In making comments in relation to the Australian Greens’ Preventing the Misuse of Government Advertising Bill 2010, I find myself in the interesting position of agreeing with some of the comments of the Special Minister of State, Senator Ludwig, and certainly agreeing with many of the comments of Senator Brown. In relation to the minister’s comments, I think this process has been rushed and I do not think it has been given appropriate levels of consideration. In relation to the comments of Senator Brown, I think there is far more on which I agree with him in relation to this matter than I do with the minister, but, having said that, we will not be supporting this motion.

There is no doubt that there was a great sense of urgency in relation to the question of government advertising. There was a great sense of urgency to address what has been a gross abuse of governmental process over the last two months. Regrettably this particular bill, in my view, is not the way to address this issue. Senator Brown knows that we have had concerns for some time now, and that for the Auditor-General to be the judge and jury is not the best process. I remind honourable senators of the letter the Auditor-General sent to the Prime Minister on 26 November 2007. It read:

Dear Prime Minister

I am writing to outline an approach to addressing your plans to increase the scrutiny of Australian government advertising campaigns.

That was in the days when the Prime Minister actually believed in appropriate scrutiny of government advertising campaigns. Those days, as honourable senators know, are long gone, with this government’s commitment to openness and transparency in government advertising. I go on to page 2 of the letter from the Auditor-General, Mr McPhee:

Given the sometimes controversial history of government advertising there is a real risk that whoever administers the guidelines could be drawn into the policy and political debate as an active participant in, and possible defender of the processes of executive government. To preserve both the real and perceived independence of this office, I and my predecessors have actively sought to avoid placing the ANAO in a situation of being both decision maker and auditor.

Similar concerns have seen previous governments take action with our support to avoid the involvement of this office in ongoing administrative roles—for example, in relation to the electoral redistribution committees and tax agents registration boards.

I think that letter sums up the position of the Auditor-General in relation to this matter. I think the Auditor-General at the moment has been forced into a position where he has indicated to various parliamentary fora over the last two weeks that he would at a pinch be involved again as the judge and jury, but from recollection certainly not with the guidelines as they exist at the moment.

The opposition is absolutely adamant that the role and integrity of the Audit Office must be retained. We do not believe it is appropriate to compromise that independence by making the Auditor the judge and jury. Of course, the Australian Labor Party for, I think, seven or eight years believed that the Auditor-General could be judge and jury, and then, when they saw things occur which indicated that they did not like the Auditor-General being the judge and jury, they just changed the rules. The outcome of those rule changes has been the subject of substantial media commentary over the last month. The outcome of rolled gold promises by the Prime Minister prior to the election, the outcome of Labor Party conventions and the weasel words spoken then in relation to this matter have all been proved to be absolutely false, and we saw the farcical situation some two weeks ago when the minister provided an exemption to the Treasurer—the great big new tax on mining exemption for advertising. The coalition, I must say with some regret, will not be supporting this motion.