David Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of Senator Boyce of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, I present two reports of the committee as listed at item 11 on today's Order of Business and move:

That the Senate take note of the reports.

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the reports of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works. I have been on the Public Works Committee since I arrived in this place. It is a very hardworking and diligent committee, as the reports show. I want to place on the record a comment that was made in the debate on the establishment of the Public Works Committee in the chamber on 11 September 1913. It said: 'Huge sums are being and have been spent for years past without proper inquiries and without that information to which the House is entitled. No big public work ought to be undertaken until this House has passed judgement upon it.' That is one of the prime functions of a legislative assembly anywhere and always. Indeed, this proposition goes to the very basis of our system of responsible government and parliamentary control. I commend the reports to the Senate.

One of the interesting features that has come to the Public Works Committee is the post-implementation report. Projects come to the committee, they are approved, they go through the House and the work is undertaken. In all cases it has been my observation that there has been a considerable amount of contingency funding in those approvals. In order to satisfy the committee that the prudent and valuable work that is done is in the public interest and represents true value for money for the taxpayer, we have asked that they submit these reports back to the committee saying, 'The project is finished. This is what we spent. It was within budget and we drew on no or all of the contingency.'

I have had a couple of roles outside of the parliament in my working life, as a director of an industry super fund, a director of a motor accident committee, chair of an investment committee, and on a national transport committee. The only thing that I got in all of my training and in all of my observations in performing those roles and responsibilities was the simple ethos: with any project that comes before you, if you are not prepared to put a dollar of your own money into it, you should not be prepared to back it in the expenditure of anybody else's money. That is particularly relevant with respect to the taxpayer.

There are projects that come to the Public Works Committee which in my view are very complex funding arrangements, and they are all properly done through the Department of Finance and through respective departments, but they do challenge a committee which meets for one hour every sitting week and is expected to approve these projects. I make no apology for being very inquisitorial, for being very straightforward, in what I see as the pursuit of value for money in the expenditure of taxpayers' dollars. We are talking about significant amounts of funds: the 77th report may well have expended $1.6 billion in 12 months.

I wanted to place on record a couple of those issues. If there is either in the media or in the committee any sort of reaction, particularly to my contribution, I want it to be fair and square on the record that if I were not prepared to put in a dollar of my own money the taxpayer should not be anywhere near it either.

Question agreed to.