David Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister tells us that she wants to put the economy front and centre in 2012, yet it is incredible to me that the first thing her government does this year is place further limits on the ability of this parliament to scrutinise economic issues. One of the strengths of our system of government over the past 110 years has been the accounta­bility of the executive—the government of the day—to its parliament. It is a strength which has helped deliver largely stable and corruption-free government regardless of which party has been in power over the history of our nation. That is not something that you can necessarily say about all countries in the world. One of the key aspects that has helped us to deliver—and I underline that—is the accountability of government to this parliament.

Over the last 40 years, the estimates system has been developed. My colleague Senator Mason went through some of the history of that and noted some of the think­ing behind it and some of its advantages. It has certainly enhanced the ability of this parliament to hold the government to account and to scrutinise its activities and the programs that the government of the day seeks to deliver and the way those programs are being implemented.

Traditionally in the development of estimates over the last 40 years the skills balance between those who are the inquisi­tors and those who are being subjected to questions usually leads to—and I know there is a bit of cut and thrust and a bit of parrying between the two opposing sides—relatively balanced outcomes where failings of governments of the day, the failings of their programs and the failings to implement them in a way that is cost effective and deliver the outcomes properly and well, are exposed and those activities of government that do need to be kept relatively close to government have been managed to be kept that way. It is a balance, and there is a need for balance in that. There are some things government does which need to be kept fairly close to its chest, and there are other things which need to be exposed to the public and which the public needs to hear about. Estimates has provided a traditional balance and a very effective way of ensuring that those things which should come into the public domain do come in for the betterment of our system of government and for the betterment of the Australian people. However, I would note that this government has taken evasion and deflection, which is a usual tactic in esti­mates, to new heights and has been putting that balance at risk. The approach by this government is starting to seriously under­mine the level of scrutiny that estimates can deliver for the benefit of the Australian public. The proposal we are debating this morning takes that deterioration in the effectiveness of estimates and makes it worse.

Estimates is important. It is a vital tool in ensuring that the activities of government are properly scrutinised. That is even more so in my view, speaking as deputy chair of the Economics Legislation Committee, for the economics committee. In estimates we have the opportunity to examine the performance of the economy, the fiscal position of the government—which has been of huge public importance over recent years—and issues such as interest rates, government debt, the impacts of international developments on the Australian economy and so on. These issues are central to the government of Australia—more so over the last few years than they have been traditionally. The economics committee is where these issues get aired.

It is appropriate, it is proper and it is good for the people of Australia that there is proper opportunity for the issues to be aired and for the elected members of this parlia­ment, the Senate, to inquire of the govern­ment about these issues. Estimates provides the only forum in which the members of the Senate have that opportunity. We all know the realities of question time, whether in the Senate or in the other place, when very few questions get answered in detail or properly, but Senate estimates traditionally has provided the opportunity for questions of importance and relevance to be answered. Generally and traditionally the questions do get answered and it is the appropriate forum for this to be done. The economics committee in estimates deals with issues of central importance to all Austra­lians. Any change that limits the ability of that committee to properly examine these issues is a retrograde step which can only fail to serve the interest of Australians.

Over and above the issues central to the economy, as I have mentioned, the econo­mics committee also traditionally looks into other Treasury portfolios: the Australian Office of Financial Management, which manages the issuance of government debt; the Australian Prudential Regulation Author­ity, which looks at the prudential regulation of banks, the superannuation industry and the insurance industry; the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which looks into a very broad range of issues relating to corporate regulation, superannuation and financial services; the ACCC; the Common­wealth Grants Commission; and a number of other agencies, including as the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education and—importantly once again for the performance of the Australian economy—the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism. That is its current load; that is what it already does, and it tries to pack that into two days. What we are talking about now is taking something we have heard from Senator Mason, taking more than half a day off a different estimates committee and packing that into a two-day program in the economics committee where we are already pushed and hard-pressed finding time to properly deal with the portfolio agencies that we already have. Not only does that fail to do justice to the tertiary education and vocational education areas, which quite clearly deserve that half-day that they traditionally have had in the education committee, but it undermines the ability of the economics committee to consider those issues that it already has. It is a lose-lose for everybody

I would not mind having a look at what we actually do in the economics committee but I think I will probably cut my time short in view of keeping the debate short. I note that the economics committee rarely, if ever, has finished early. I come down at 11 o'clock at night after estimates has finished and the day is finished and I note that some of the other estimates committees have finished early and have gone home. I am quite envious of the fact that they have managed to get out before 11 o'clock—and, Mr Acting Deputy President Cameron, as a member of the economics committee, you would be aware that we rarely get out before 11 o'clock. That is because we never, ever have enough time to adequately deal with the issues and questions that need to be asked of the agency portfolios in the economics estimates committee. I end up putting probably hundreds of questions on notice at the end of estimates, because there is so much that I think needs to be asked and there is no time to ask it.

Senator Mason very eloquently explored the reasons why vocational and tertiary education need the time that traditionally they have been allocated and the importance of those areas to the Australian economy and the Australian people. To take all of that and to squeeze and poke it into an agenda that is already inadequate in terms of the time that is available to explore the issues that it is charged with exploring, is, I think, an indication of either gross mismanagement or, in the context of a Prime Minister who wishes to explore the economy to a greater extent, something a little less noble than mismanagement.

So what are we looking at? Over the last few weeks since we found out that this change was going to be put before the Senate—and probably, depending on the outcome of the Greens' vote, likely to proceed—we have tried to manage by looking at where we can cut time from the existing agenda and which of those portfolio agencies we can take some time from. In some cases, some agencies will just be excused and not called because in terms of the overall priorities we will not be able to deal with them. That is not good for scrutiny of government. These are all agencies that do good things. They should appear before the committee and should be properly scrutin­ised. But given we are trying to squeeze a half-day program from another committee into our two-day program, we have gone through that and tried to make it work.

I commend the chair of the committee, Senator Mark Bishop, who is being quite reasonable in trying to work with us to fit all this in so that we can try to get those agencies before us that we really need to have and to maximise the time for each of them. But the reality is, as hard as we have tried and as accommodating as the chair has been, we have ended up with an outcome that is a very, very poor outcome for delivering the benefits and proper scrutiny of these areas so that we can make sure that the government in these areas is as it should be.

It is a very, very disappointing end, and I will just pull out a few examples of what we are looking at. There are four major Treasury areas: the Treasury Macroeconomic Group, the Treasury Fiscal Group, the Treasury Markets Group, and the Treasury Revenue Group which appears with the ATO, the Australian tax office. As Senator Brandis noted, the Macroeconomic Group has in itself taken half a day or more because of the issues that it deals with. In macroeconomics we look at the broader issues of the impact on the Australian economy of things like the global financial crisis, the impending threats that are coming out of the current European situation and the impacts of interest rates and all those types of issues. Those issues get looked at in the macroeconomics area. As a result of the changes we have now, we have allocated one hour and 45 minutes to deal with the overall macroeconomic issues. That is appalling in terms of the relevance and the importance of macroeconomic issues to all Australians.

Treasury Fiscal is about how the government spends the taxpayers' money that it collects. We have got two hours to go through spending right across all areas of government. That is grossly insufficient time to have any hope at all of looking into the issues of the spending of this government.

Similarly, there are two hours to look at the Markets Group. The Treasury Markets Group looks at the operation of all the different markets, like the banking market or the housing market, or whatever it might be right across Australia. There are a plethora of different markets that Treasury has oversight of, and yet we have two hours to go right across all markets in Australia. It is grossly insufficient time to do justice to examining the state of those markets, all of which feed into the economy, all employ people, and all create wealth for the people of Australia. Yet we have no opportunity other than these two hours to look at that.

Then of course there is the Treasury Revenue Group in the ATO. The government has argued—and this is all about taxes of course—that the reason it is in such a poor fiscal position is because of the collapse of revenue. This is the opportunity to examine that issue. This is the opportunity to examine new taxes like the government's mining tax and the carbon tax. It is also the opportunity to look at the Australian Taxation Office and how the Australian tax office deals with individuals and companies around Australia in raising those taxes. The two hours and 30 minutes which we have managed to negotiate for that is grossly inadequate. I could go on right through this program and talk about the importance of each of the portfolio agency areas and the need for more time to examine them. I could justify it for each one of those with a very, very strong case. But the reality is that, in summary, we have had to squeeze all of them. We have had to limit the ability for parliament to scrutinise them properly and, at the same time, tertiary education and vocational education lose because we do lose the opportunity to properly scrutinise this area. This is an appalling decision by this government, and I strongly support the position that the coalition has taken in not supporting it.