Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

At the outset I acknowledge the tremendous role that the member for Eden-Monaro is playing in his electorate. I have had the good fortune to visit his electorate and to be with him on those listening posts. I attended a tourism conference in his electorate and saw the warmth with which he was greeted at that conference, given the fact that finally people in Eden-Monaro are seeing some real action being taken by their member. The one he replaced was missing in action. I can tell you that the breath of fresh air that he has brought to his electorate is very welcome, as well as many of the policy ideas that he has brought to the coalition.

I know that the member for Eden-Monaro has a very diverse electorate because I am one of his near neighbours. He points out that he has 2,000 defence people in Eden-Monaro. I too understand the unique responsibility that comes with representing defence personnel. He does a very good job just of that. He also talked about the Intergenerational reportand what an important document that was in establishing the time frame and what we need to do as a government and as a nation to understand the challenges that we will face over coming years, indeed over decades. What we need to do now is make sure that the economic decisions we take acknowledge the great impost on future generations.

The good member asked me what action the government is taking to get better value out of its leased office accommodation space. That too is very important for him because of the number of public servants he represents. I can tell him that the Commonwealth currently leases around 30,000 square metres of office space in the Australian Capital Territory surplus to its long-term needs. Filling existing surplus Commonwealth lease space before committing to new long-term leases is a sensible use of Commonwealth property resources. By reviewing upcoming leases of Commonwealth agencies, it has been possible to identify opportunities for selected agencies to move into this vacant surplus office space as current leases expire. This approach has the potential to save an estimated $200 million over the next decade. There are likely to be other benefits, such as the potential for increased collaboration between agencies and the sharing of facilities in the areas of ICT platforms and property service providers. I understand that discussions between the Department of Finance and their agency counterparts are progressing very well and that, in almost all cases, agencies will be moving into buildings with a high commercial quality.

The amount of underutilised office space across government is constantly changing as organisational needs change. When major leasing decisions are taken on a whole-of-government basis—that is important, and I know the member for Eden-Monaro in his various roles on committees and in his discussions with me has always stressed the need for whole-of government decision making to take place—and they involve coordination between agencies, there is a greater scope to reduce underutilised office space. Our smaller government agenda will see the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, the Migration Review Tribunal, the Refugee Review Tribunal and the Social Security Appeals Tribunal merged into a single Commonwealth merits review tribunal. I will shortly be referring to the public works committee a project to fit out office accommodation for the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in Sydney in the same building where the Migration Review Tribunal and Refugee Review Tribunal are already located. This will give the amalgamation, which has already occurred in law, an appropriate physical dimension. I will also be referring to the public works committee a project which will see the ATO relinquish excess accommodation in Penrith, New South Wales and undertake a new fit-out on a reduced footprint at the same site. These are important measures. The smaller tenancy in this case is estimated to save the Australian Taxation Office $38.9 million in operational costs over 10 years.

These are just some of the ways in which we are striving to obtain better value from our leased office accommodation. The job is by no means finished. When we announced this initiative on 11 May, the minister and I also stated that agencies will be required to consider local impacts when assessing options to meet their future accommodation needs.

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