Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The terms of reference for this inquiry by the Joint Committee on Publications was to inquire and report on the distribution of the parliamentary papers series. The committee was to specifically look into the potential impact of changes to the distribution of the PPS made by the Presiding Officers, namely the tightening of eligibility guidelines; the provision of the PPS in a digital format, either as an alternative or in conjunction with the hard copy series; the feasibility of a subscription service, either in digital or hard copy form; and the possibility of partial or full cost recovery for the series.

By way of some background, the parliamentary papers series has been ongoing since 1901. Documents of a substantial nature that are presented to the parliament are included in the series, normally by a resolution of either house of parliament. On average, as I understand it, 430 documents out of about 800 are presented to the parliament in this way. The documents that are not referred by resolution are considered by the Publications Committee of both houses, which meets on a regular basis. The committee then decides whether to recommend the inclusion of those documents in the parliamentary papers series.

As it stands, the series is available in a loose-leaf pamphlet form. At the end of each financial year, these pamphlet copies are effectively collated and produced in a blister pack, as it is called. That is made available to eligible recipients. These blister packs are often delayed. The delays are due to various reasons but, primarily, they are due to the failure of various agencies to ensure that there are adequate stocks of their particular document with the printers in order for them to be distributed. Unfortunately, these delays have sometimes been in the magnitude of 30 months, which is quite unacceptable and is something this inquiry committee sought to do something about.

Before I go to the actual details of the report, I would like to say that it has been a pleasure working on this committee with my colleague Mr Johnson. The member for Makin held this committee together well. Quite frankly, the work of this committee is quite laborious—going through these papers and making the recommendations as required—and the way the member for Makin has chaired this committee is a credit to her. I have enjoyed working with her and my fellow members on the committee. I would also like to pay regard to the secretariat, Jason Sherd and Vicki Bradley, who have made a sterling contribution to this committee.

Changes to the eligibility have occurred. There was an exclusion of Commonwealth departmental libraries, various foreign embassies, political parties and municipal libraries. However, we understand from the evidence from municipal libraries that two of the three involved would still want to be on our free distribution list. The PPS service provides vital information to these organisations about government and activities in the parliament, including the review of past policies and programs. Therefore the committee recommends that the Commonwealth departmental libraries should be reincluded in those eligibility guidelines. That is included in recommendation 1.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you will recall that I mentioned the composition of these blister packs that occurs at the end of each financial year, but the presiding officer decided that from 1 January of this year those blister packs would cease to be provided. As I explained earlier, the reason is somewhat twofold. Firstly, there are the delays. As I indicated, some delays were for up to 30 months and therefore the documents were hopelessly out of date by the time they were disseminated. Secondly, there was an issue of cost in storing, processing and distributing these materials. In relation to the delays that have been experienced, we as a committee do not believe that the abolition of the blister packs will do anything to address the problem with agencies that are not complying at the moment. The committee has recommended that we should put in effect a procedure monitored by the Government Information Management Office to ensure that agencies are complying, and not abolish blister packs simply because they are not here and available when they are required.

There is a cost factor here and it has been estimated that around $30,000 a year would be saved by the abolition of these compiled blister packs. But, having regard to the evidence that this committee has received, we think that that $30,000 would be something of an exercise in cost-shifting. Those libraries’ evidence to this committee indicates that if they had to go through the process of sourcing the information, collating it and putting it together in its proper order to ensure completeness then the financial and administrative burden placed upon them would be more than offset by the savings that we would seek to make by abolishing this service. Therefore we think that it is not an argument simply on cost to abandon the blister pack process. Therefore this committee has recommended that blister packs be continued. We do so in the full knowledge that that is an effective reversal of the presiding officers’ decision in this regard.

There are issues about duplication and efficiency that we can address. We have sought to task the Australian Government Information Management Office with investigating the prospect of reducing the duplication of a number of reports from various committees and agencies and to report back to our committee within six months, with any recommendations to be implemented in a further six months. We think that is a constructive exercise in trying to address cost and trying to ensure that efficiencies work properly and adequately in our system. Other areas where the committee found the capacity for cost savings include the production of various agencies’ reports. You probably see many yourself; many are in full colour and go to great lengths to advertise their particular positions. However, agencies participating in that style of publication are doing so in excess of the publication guidelines as they are currently dictated. The committee is concerned that if we are going to get value for money we should be encouraging all agencies to adhere to those guidelines.The committee is intending to monitor compliance and will report to the parliament in that regard.

If I had more time I would have spoken about the electoral distribution of parliamentary papers. One issue that is of concern is that at present the National Library of Australia estimates that only 10 per cent of agencies are currently meeting their obligations to publish online. These obligations were spelt out by the government online strategy in 2000, and that has not yet been adhered to. (Time expired)

See this speech in context