Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Pocock for the question and for the work that she has been doing along with Senator O'Neill and Senator Colbeck in this space. I think initially I would say to you that the government is very interested in the work that the Senate committees are doing and is looking forward to your report and any recommendations that you have. I would say that there are, as the Senate is aware, powers within the committees to seek information, and of course I'd leave it to the committee to look at whether there is any further work that they can do there.

In relation to what the government is doing, we have been doing quite a lot of work to strengthen some of our arrangements around engagement of consulting firms. We've talked about this at estimates. I think we have learnt a lot, through the PwC issue that's being examined by various Senate committees, of further work that we need to do. I would say that some of the origins of the investigations are related to a breach of a confidentiality arrangement, not a breach of procurement processes, but what it has done is lead us to look at what further work we can do to strengthen integrity within our procurement processes around the use of consultants and contractors. We've been doing that through our strategic commissioning framework and through our efforts to reduce the reliance on consultants and contractors. Some of the further arrangements that we're looking at are in relation, I think, to some of the issues that have arisen out of confidentiality and out of conflict-of-interest arrangements that may exist that we are doing further work on. We are very much looking forward to the report and to the recommendations that are going to come forward from your various inquiries.