Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I certainly am speaking to it and will continue to do so, because this is a bill about the accuracy and the accountability of government, which remains a major problem for this government.

Whilst the coalition applaud the spirit of the bill put forward by the member for Lyne, our concern is what it will actually do to stop the waste. As we know, the Prime Minister talked about letting the sun shine in but, in this case, it is only after the fact. Surely, our first duty as parliamentarians is to make sure that the waste is prevented in the first place. The member seeks to widen the powers of the Auditor-General, but this will not prevent the waste occurring at the outset. That is what the problem is. It may be a cliche but maybe this is trying to lock the door after the horse has bolted.

In this case, some classic risk-management principles are required. As has been said, this is a case of ‘we can assess what the waste has been after it has occurred’. The coalition will not support this bill until it has this sort of extra information and extra requirements such as an office of due diligence. This office would properly assess government programs to make sure that waste abuse and mismanagement were not part of a program. It is a classic and very real risk-management proposal that would end up stopping such waste. Without such a front-end assessment to address program failures before they happen, we cannot possibly support this bill.

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