Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Finance, Charities and Electoral Matters) Share this | Hansard source

The purpose of the opposition's bill is to amend the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 to increase transparency in government operations relating to act-of-grace payments and waivers of debts. It would require the Department of Finance to include in its annual report details of decisions made under the act to authorise act-of-grace payments or to waive debts owed to the Commonwealth. I note that, in recognition of privacy and confidentiality concerns, the bill only seeks that the total number of matters authorised and the total value of those authorisations be published.

The act-of-grace and waiver-of-debt powers exist under the PGPA Act to enable the consideration and resolution of matters that fall outside the usual legislative frameworks. They're intended to be exercised as a last resort as they provide flexibility for the Commonwealth to deal quickly and effectively with issues where special circumstances arise. The government does not use these powers lightly, but they are a necessary capability to respond to fast-moving events where existing legislation may not be able to be used. For example, these powers are an important part of the government's response to COVID-19, enabling the waiver of annual levies in the fishing industry and the waiver of the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students levy in the education sector to help support those sectors in this challenging time.

In considering this bill, it is important to note that there is already a robust system for the exercise of these powers. Debt waivers and act-of-grace payments are discretionary: there is no automatic entitlement. Each claim is carefully assessed on its merits. The Department of Finance consults broadly and confidentially with the applicants and impacted Commonwealth agencies to ensure that decision-makers have all the relevant information in considering each claim. Further, consideration of the exercise of these powers for amounts over $500,000 can only occur after an advisory committee has been established and provided advice to the Minister for Finance or the Assistant Minister for Finance. The advisory committee is comprised of relevant public servants with knowledge of both the process of debt waivers and act-of-grace payments, as well as specialist knowledge of the policy issue.

There is some merit in the disclosure of some data of payments made under the PGPA Act provided that individual payments are not able to be identified. Indeed, the Minister for Finance has reported some aggregate data in answers to questions on notice. Most recently, debt waiver data was provided in response to a question from Senator McAllister during the October 2019 Senate estimates. Many payments are to individuals, small businesses or small organisations. Sometimes the value of payment can pertain to sensitive information such as the value of lost income. We therefore need to be very careful about how any data is released to ensure the privacy of applicants is maintained.

That being said, amending the PGPA Act, as proposed by this bill, to mandate disclosure in Finance's annual reports is an unnecessary and inflexible expansion of the PGPA Act. The normal approach is for annual report requirements to consist of fixed requirements that do not change from year to year. That model for reporting is, however, too rigid for discretionary payment data, where some years can yield relatively few discretionary payments and a risk can therefore arise that the value of an individual payment could be deduced.

There is also the issue here of ensuring appropriate consultation. Ordinarily, annual reporting requirements are not changed without consultation with the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit. If the JCPAA had been consulted, they might have suggested that the intent of this bill could be better addressed through an amendment to the PGPA annual reporting rule or through a direction from the Minister for Finance to our department to make this information available while taking into account the risks of disclosure and amending the presentation of data to reduce that risk.

Requests for act-of-grace payments or waiver of debts are made with the utmost privacy and confidentiality. This bill creates the risk that, in those years where there are a small number of matters authorised, rigid reporting, as is envisaged by the proposed bill, could serve to identify a particular claimant. There are no safeguards in the proposed bill to protect against this possibility. Rather than the approach in the proposed bill, it is preferable that the government release data in a way that ensures there are no inadvertent disclosures that may compromise the Commonwealth's commitment to treating claims in confidence. As such, the Minister for Finance has directed our department to commence disclosure of annual and five-year aggregate data in relation to act-of-grace payments and debt waivers, including for the 2019-20 financial year. There are sufficient payments in the 2019-20 year that there is not a concern about privacy. I understand that this data will be made public on the transparency.gov.au website later this calendar year.

This bill is an unnecessary and inflexible expansion of the PGPA Act and has not been considered by the relevant joint committee of parliament. This government strongly believes in transparency in government operations. That is why the Minister for Finance has directed our department to release the information that the proposed bill is seeking in a manner that is flexible enough to ensure the privacy of applicants is maintained.