Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—In respect of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2020-21, I move:

That the House of Representatives be requested to make the following amendments:

(1) Clause 6, page 5 (line 4), omit "$36,809,121,000", substitute "$36,813,567,000".

(2) Schedule 1, page 9 (table item dealing with Prime Minister and Cabinet portfolio), omit "998,426", substitute "1,002,872".

(3) Schedule 1, page 9 (table item dealing with the total), omit "36,809,121", substitute "36,813,567".

(4) Schedule 1, page 11 (table item dealing with Prime Minister and Cabinet portfolio), omit the table item, substitute:

(5) Schedule 1, page 11 (table item dealing with the total), omit the table item, substitute:

(6) Schedule 1, page 124 (table item dealing with Australian National Audit Office), omit "29,219" (twice occurring), substitute "33,665".

(7) Schedule 1, page 124 (table item dealing with total), omit the table item, substitute:

(8) Schedule 1, page 132 (table item dealing with Australian National Audit Office outcome 1), omit "29,219" (twice occurring), substitute "33,665".

(9) Schedule 1, page 132 (table item dealing with total), omit "29,219" (twice occurring), substitute "33,665".

Statement pursuant to the order of the Senate of 26 June 2000

These amendments are framed as requests because they are to a bill which appropriates moneys for the ordinary annual services of the government.

Statement by the Clerk of the Senate pursuant to the order of the Senate of 26 June 2000

As this is a bill appropriating moneys for the ordinary annual services of the government within the meaning of section 53 of the Constitution, any Senate amendments to the bill must be moved as requests. This is in accordance with the precedents of the Senate.

On budget night, my worst fears were confirmed when the government denied the Auditor-General his requested budget. The starvation of funds means the number of performance audits conducted per year will drop from 48 to 38—that is, 42 this year, 40 next year and then down to 38. That's a 20 per cent reduction in the number of performance audits that the Auditor-General will carry out. No other agency has copped a 20 per cent cut in outcomes as a result of this budget, but that's what this government has done to one of the most important federal integrity agencies. This chamber has got to save the Auditor-General from being financially throttled. You can't blow the whistle when the government has its hands around your throat. We have to fix this, or else government accountability and scrutiny will be busted.

It's worth recalling that the office of the federal Auditor-General is one of the oldest and most important of the government agencies. It was first established by the Audit Act in 1901 and the first Auditor-General, John Israel, took office in December of that year, 119 years ago. Critically, the Auditor-General is an officer of the parliament. That is by design. He's an officer who is there to assist the parliament in respect of oversight. We give him tenure for 10 years and we give him a budget—or that's what we're supposed to do. It's absolutely vital to the parliament's ability to examine and scrutinise the performance of government. Without the information often uncovered by a fully resourced Audit Office, the parliament's scrutiny processes—that is, Senate estimates, committee processes and question time—would be greatly diminished.

The government's cuts to the Auditor's budget are a direct assault on the oversight of government. It is entirely reasonable to conclude that the cuts were retribution for the Auditor-General's continued exposure of government maladministration, cost blowouts and the highly questionable conduct of ministers and officials. The Auditor has been responsible for uncovering the sports rorts scandal, the overpayment of 10 times the amount for Western Sydney airport land, the total mismanagement of water within the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, and the repeated cost and performance failures in Defence projects. These budget cuts mean that the Auditor-General will be watching less. He will not be able to probe as deeply. He won't be able to turn over as many rocks to find out what corruption and maladministration lie beneath. While I have no doubt about the independence and the integrity of the Auditor-General, there is no doubt that, in the longer term, the government's strangulation of the ANAO's budget will have a chilling effect on the conduct of inquiries. Independence of the office must be supported by full funding and a guarantee that funding will not be cut according to the political whims of the government of the day.

I'll digress slightly to talk about one of the areas in which the Auditor-General conducts examinations—that is, the Future Submarine project. When I bring this up the government cringes, because it's a project on which they've managed to get a blowout of $39 billion and they simply don't know what to do about it. I asked my office to have a look at how much that blowout is costing us per day, and the number comes in at $2 million per day when I amortise it across the 38 years of the project. This request seeks to give the Auditor-General $4.4 million. That's two measly days of Future Submarine cost blowouts. Those on the other side of the chamber simply don't want that brought up in this place. Minister for Finance Birmingham ought to be really concerned about this $39 billion blowout, but those opposite focus on trying to shave $4 million off the Auditor-General. It's just crazy. That's why, as a first step, I will move an amendment to the budget's appropriation bill to restore the funding to the Auditor. This is a vital measure to avoid an immediate contraction of the Auditor-General's vital work.

The Prime Minister says that the JCPAA is carrying out a review of the Audit Act and tries to use that as a facade for saying, 'This decrease is okay. We'll look at it in the review.' We don't need a review to understand that the Auditor-General's performance audits are going from 48 down to 38 over the next couple of years and down to 42 this year. I know that because that's what the Auditor-General said at estimates, and he's pretty good with numbers; he knows what he's talking about.

In the longer term there will need to be a legislative financial framework in place to ensure that the Auditor doesn't have to look over his or her shoulder to see whether a new budget cut is coming. Let's not forget that these cuts to the Auditor come at a time when there is no federal independent commission against corruption and there's a freedom of information regime fuelled by cavalier FOI claims by officials. I can attest to that through all of the different FOI exemptions that, in my own case, have been overturned over the years. It's an FOI regime that is starved because the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner also has no increase in funding, despite the increases in FOIs and despite the backlog.

Many of the basic integrity mechanisms of the federal government are either broken, sidelined, starved of resources or simply not there. We must save the Auditor-General from being financially throttled. We have to fix this or else there will be no one to keep the bastards honest. Thank you.