Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Minchin, Minister for Finance and Administration. Does the minister recall defending the decision not to take the water package to cabinet at estimates on 12 February, when he said, ‘$1 billion a year, which is less than half a per cent of Commonwealth government expenditure’? Is it the position of the government that decisions costing $1 billion a year of taxpayers’ money no longer have to go to cabinet? Where is this in the cabinet handbook or, indeed, the Charter of Budget Honesty? How can the finance minister maintain financial discipline and proper management of public finances without cabinet scrutiny of programs worth $1 billion a year? Is the government’s declining accountability a demonstration of its growing arrogance in placing politics before good governance?

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must confess to being guilty of an ill-judged attempt at irony in estimates. I would say to all my ministerial colleagues: never attempt irony, because you never get away with it! On the question, I did also say during estimates that there are no specific published criteria under either Labor governments or our government as to which decisions go to cabinet or committees of cabinet at specific stages of the decision-making process. That has been the case, I think, for the history of the Commonwealth. It is the prerogative of prime ministers to decide at what point in a decision-making process in relation to government initiatives is cabinet, cabinet committee or senior ministerial consideration to be applied to the particular proposal.

I also said, in my answer previously to Senator Wong, that of course the detailed expenditure programs under this great initiative will be subject to the rigours of the expenditure review committee and the full budget process and will be set out in detail in the budget that is released on 8 May, giving the four-year spending profile for all the programs that will take place under this major and very exciting new initiative.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister confirm that, while the major $10 billion spending package on water policy had no cabinet scrutiny, the decision to spend $250,000 on a gold- and jewel-encrusted stagecoach for Her Majesty the Queen was fully considered by cabinet and after the Prime Minister’s intervention? Isn’t this just another example of a stale and tired government and a minister not ensuring due process for billions of dollars of policy expenditure?

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In fact, it is a pathetic demonstration of the Labor Party attempting to rehash material that they went through in estimates. They feel that they did not get a run out of it, so they are going to try and get a run out of it at question time. They have run out of questions, so they have to rehash estimates material. It is pathetic and they are obviously a very tired old opposition. Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.