Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As the honourable member for Gorton just mentioned, a number of speakers in this debate have been members of the Public Works Committee. I have not been a member of the Public Works Committee, but I have previously been Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration and, as the results of the deliberations of the Public Works Committee are moved through the parliament in that capacity, I am acutely aware of the bipartisan nature of the committee. I am well aware that the committee takes its work very seriously. On numerous occasions, I had discussions with, and correspondence to and from, the honourable member for Pearce, who was the chair of that committee.

I think the concept of a Public Works Committee in a democracy in 2006, in the 21st century, is very positive; it works towards accountability. Overwhelmingly, in my experience, the Public Works Committee does endorse the recommendations of the departments. Others might correct me if that is not the case, but that is my perception. Sometimes, however, caveats are placed on those recommendations—with recommendations for slight variations and, maybe, improvements. As the honourable member for Gorton said in reference to the extensions to the Maribyrnong detention centre, the committee might occasionally take a point of view that is different from the point of view the responsible minister would like the committee to take. In a democracy, if you want a committee system to work, if you do not want it to be just a rubber stamp for the government of the day, you have to allow committees to take evidence and then to deliberate on the issues they have been able to ascertain from their perusal of the evidence given. The Public Works Committee is entrenched—regardless of which party is in office, we will continue to have the committee.

I see this bill as being a very positive step, particularly in the area of accountability and transparency. There has been an increase in the amount of money—from $6 million to $15 million—that can be expended on a project before it is required to be considered by the committee. That is timely, and I might even say overdue. The figure of $6 million has been in place for some 20 years: $6 million 20 years ago would certainly buy a lot more than $6 million today. Maybe it would have been even better to index the figure so that it goes up in accordance with some particular index so that we are not in a situation of having to do this again. But I think in future it will be possible to vary it by regulation. That will be a flexible move which will mean that the committee will not be required to look at projects for which the expenditure is below the figure considered from time to time to be appropriate.

It is important to make sure that taxpayers get good value for money, and the Public Works Committee is a vital tool in ensuring that this occurs. Governments are not immune to increasing building costs. Right around the country building costs constantly go up, including in the domestic sector. For instance, on the Sunshine Coast, seven or eight years ago the average price of a home was $167,038, whereas today it is $436,429—a huge increase, partly caused by inflation, partly for other reasons. Governments are not immune to these increases. Consequently it is important to increase the figure from $6 million to $15 million, because that is the appropriate level of expenditure on a project for consideration by a parliamentary committee and also for the reason the previous member articulated, namely, that the workload of the Public Works Committee was becoming almost unmanageable.

The Public Works Committee Amendment Bill 2006 takes into account that there are many factors that influence prices and also the reality that prices do in fact increase. The committee is governed by the Public Works Committee Act 1969, which states that all public works projects for the Commonwealth which are valued at more than $6 million must be referred to the committee for its perusal. Projects that must be referred to the committee are those sponsored by Australian government departments and major statutory bodies. The projects are referred either by His Excellency the Governor-General or by the House of the parliament. In my capacity as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration, I often used to refer projects to the Public Works Committee on behalf of the government.

As I said before, this bill increases the threshold from $6 million to $15 million, increasing that figure after a period of 20 years. This new figure was selected after referring to the increase in construction prices and the figure has been agreed by all ministers with an interest in public works. Implementing this change will help reduce the compliance cost of those projects costing between $6 million and $15 million.

I think most people in the Australian community would accept that, as these projects are constructed using public money, it is important that they be properly scrutinised. So the committee is empowered, under the act, to investigate and assess the projects in various areas, including the need for the work, its effectiveness in meeting that need and the cost-effectiveness of the project. If it is a revenue-raising venture, the committee can investigate and make a determination as to whether the project will raise the projected revenue. The committee can also investigate and assess the value of the finished work.

Mr Deputy Speaker Lindsay, you will be well aware that the bill will also help to streamline the operations of the committee and the act by amending the definition of public works to include those projects that are co-funded by a private company. In Australia, and I suspect in other jurisdictions around the world, this practice is becoming increasingly common. The bill will insert provisions into the act that will enable the threshold of the committee to be varied by regulation—and I alluded to that before—and that gives a flexibility that has not been available for the last 20 years.

The draftsmen of the bill will use its passing to correct a past oversight and to insert gender neutral language into the act. I have to say I do not necessarily agree with this modern drafting tendency whereby the thought police are out there marauding through the legislation of this nation and taking out words like ‘chairman’, which are not sexist terms, because ‘man’ comes from ‘manus’, the hand, the Latin. It is not male; it is the hand that guides the chair. I just think that it is a pity in 2006—

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