Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move Australian Greens amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 7769:

(1) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 4), omit "Schedule 4", substitute "Schedules 3A and 4".

(2) Page 13 (after line 28), after Schedule 3, insert:

Schedule 3A—Infrastructure and Regional Development

Infrastructure Australia Act 2008

1 Section 39C

  Repeal the section, substitute:

39C Annual report

     The annual report prepared by the Board and given to the Minister under section 46 of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 for a period must also include:

  (a) details of any directions given to Infrastructure Australia by the Minister under subsection 6(1) of this Act during the period; and

  (b) details of each method of preparing cost benefit analyses approval of which was in force under subsection 5B(3) of this Act at any time during the period, including the weight required to be assigned to each factor the method required be taken into account.

These amendments, as I outlined in my speech in the second reading debate, are to change the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008, repealing a section and replacing it with a section which means that, in the annual report of Infrastructure Australia, there have to be details of any directions given to Infrastructure Australia by the minister and details of each method of preparing cost-benefit analyses, approval of which was in force at any time during the period, including the weight to be assigned to each factor and the method required to be taken into account. Essentially, this measure increases transparency and accountability and reinserts a measure that was in the Infrastructure Australia legislation until last year.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor supports this amendment. This amendment was legislated, as Senator Rice has mentioned, as part of the package of amendments to the Infrastructure Australia Act that passed the parliament in 2014. In a welcome show of bipartisanship, the Senate amendments, mainly authored by Labor but with input from the Greens and crossbench, were accepted by the government. This amendment was sought to require that Infrastructure Australia publish annually all methods it uses to evaluate cost-benefit analyses. This is an important element of transparency and allows those who wonder about how projects are evaluated to have an insight into how recommendations are arrived at. Following the passage of the Infrastructure Australia Bill in its amended form, this new clause was omitted in the process of general amendments to many acts to incorporate governance changes under the Public Governance Performance and Accountability Act 2013. This amendment merely restores the status quo. Labor notes that Infrastructure Australia has, notwithstanding the absence of this clause in its act, proceeded to publish recently its new assessment framework guidance. This followed a review last year and contains detailed technical advice on how to work up a business case, including a cost-benefit analysis.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government does not support the amendment. I am advised that part 39C(a) is already provided for in the act under 39C of the act and 39C(b) of the amendment is already provided for under subsections 5B(3), 6, 7 and 8, which require Infrastructure Australia to approve the cost-benefit analysis methodology to be used, review the methodology regularly and make the report of the review available on its website within 14 days.

Infrastructure Australia include in their evaluation templates the cost-benefit methodology requirements and, as Senator Brown acknowledged in her contribution, this information is already publicly available on its website. So it is the government's view that this is not necessary and would merely add to the legislation in a manner that is not required and would not deliver anything that Infrastructure Australia is not currently already doing.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Information on the cost-benefit analyses, as you say, is on the website. However, my understanding is that the detail that is required to enable the cost benefit analyses to be compared is not there. Particular details include the weight required to be assigned to each factor of the method. This sort of detail, assessment and analysis of the cost-benefit analysis is critical, because you can have cross benefit analyses but this level of information that is on the website is very different to the level of information that was required and that was included in the legislation until 2014. It was included there for a purpose. It was included so that we could have transparency. It was so not just people within Infrastructure Australia who knew what the cost-benefit analysis was and what the methodology was. It was so we could all have that information. The community was able to assess that information. That level of detail is required.

That level of detail was previously in the legislation. We feel it was inappropriate that it was removed. It was removed without any fanfare and without people knowing it was being removed in the changes to the legislation last year. My question to you, Minister, is this: can you confirm that the details, including the weight given to each factor in the cost-benefit analysis, is not available in the information Infrastructure Australia publishes on its website?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I cannot confirm, Senator Rice, exactly what is or is not on the Infrastructure Australia website. I am advised that their evaluation templates around cost-benefit methodology requirements are available on the website. The granularity of that information is not something that I can provide to the Senate this instant. I am sure that the minister—I think it would be Mr Fletcher in this case—would be happy for his office to talk through with you and your office any particular additional information that may be required if that is information that can be provided without excessive additional work for its generation.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy to have that further discussion with Minister Fletcher, but I think that can be after we have this amendment put into the legislation. This is a very useful opportunity while this legislation is before us tonight to do exactly the thing that these omnibus repeal days are set out to do—make some fine tweaks to legislation to improve it. I know the government's position is that those fine tweaks involve removing what they called red tape, but so often one person's red tape is another person's very important and critical piece of regulation that enables better governance, transparency and accountability.

There are people who are interested in how these decisions are being made, as we are spending billions of dollars. The cost-benefit analysis and ending up with that final benefit-cost ratio, whether it is 1.1 or 0.9, can make the difference between whether we spend billions of dollars on one project or another. If we do not have that granularity, if we do not have all that detail of information, it is obscure and there is no opportunity for peer review, for the experts in the community to do the assessment and say, 'Ah, yes. This is how they got to their figure of 0.9 or 1.1.' It is really important that we have that level of detail and all of that detail.

I think it is really important that that detail ends up being in the annual report of Infrastructure Australia. Infrastructure Australia was set up to be an organisation that was meant to take the politics out of decision making and meant to be assessing the information objectively so that we knew we had reliable, objective information about our infrastructure requirements. But in order for the community to be assured that that objectivity is there, we need to have this level of information.

If Infrastructure Australia is doing its job correctly and if it is supplying the cost-benefit analyses equally and objectively across all projects and if in fact the proponents of the various projects have cost-benefit analyses that are comparable, there is nothing to hide. The details can be made public. It is not a big thing to do. Those details can be made public and then we can all see how the decisions are being made. It is really only by having that information and those details that it can be made clear and that the community can have faith and can trust that decisions are being made completely transparently and completely objectively.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Rice, I suspect we will have to agree to disagree to some extent. I think it is odd that you would want to pursue this via an annual report in any event. It is obviously far more timely for the type of information you are seeking to be available on the website, which is where, as I understand it, the bulk of information is provided. As I indicated before, if you think what is provided on the website can be enhanced, then I am sure the government will be happy to have those discussions and consider any practical suggestions that you may make.

You suggested that the removal of some of these requirements from previous legislation snuck through without people seeing them. I make the general observation that my recollection is that some of the objects around the PGPA Act, as it passed through, were to try to better align some of the requirements for annual reports across different agencies and entities of the government. Obviously, this would be a regressive step in what is meant to be a simplified and more consistent process around annual reports.

There are other means to get the type of information that you claim is unavailable. I will take you at your word, but certainly my understanding is that we publish the methodology, it is reviewed regularly, there is a report made available within 14 days following the review and evaluation templates are published on the website already. In the end, regardless of how much of that sort of information is provided, sometimes you would still need to take the time to drill down in estimates or elsewhere with the agency about what some of the underlying assumptions are. There would be many assumptions in such modelling. It may not be the case that they will be neatly spelt out in the consistent manner that you are seeking, which is why all of the other avenues for scrutiny exist across the government.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy if Infrastructure Australia make all the information, in all of its fine details and all of its granularity, available on the website. At every estimates session that I have attended since I have been in the Senate, I have taken the opportunity to question Infrastructure Australia about things such as their cost-benefit-analysis methodology and the other ways that they are making judgements. The critical thing is that requiring this detail of granularity in the annual report in the legislation means it has to be there. We know that there is no statutory authority to present this information on their website. We know that public servants at Infrastructure Australia do a very good job of only giving just the right amount of information that they want to give at estimates, of not knowing things, of having to take things on notice, of not giving the answers to those questions on notice until the day before the next estimates session and of not giving the detail needed in the answers to those questions on notice. Hence, the cycle goes on: you ask more questions at estimates, and then three months later you get another tiny sliver of information. Hence, there is the requirement, in the interests of transparency and accountability, that the annual report have the full level of detail so that the community can share that information. It is so we can make our own assessments and the transport experts around the Australian community can make well-informed assessments about the cost-benefit analyses and the appropriateness of investing in various different bits of infrastructure.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported with amendment s ; report adopted.