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

It is a great joy to enter this debate tonight. One of the great things about being a member of parliament is that you get the opportunity to go out to the schools of your electorate and talk about what a great, strong democracy we have in Australia. I describe to the children in the high schools the way the parliament works and the advantages of government. I say that on the government side they have some extra staff in their offices in the ministerial wing, but behind the ministers they also have the departments—all those thousands of public servants dedicated to helping the government. One of the reasons it would be good for the opposition to win the next election is that we would get all that support.

I was in the chamber to hear the very fine points that were made by the members for Mackellar, Bradfield, Mayo and Wright. It is very important that we are true to that which was brought out by the originators of the concept—that is, the shadow Treasurer on this side. When we look back at what happened at the time of the 2010 election we see the way in which Treasury was used and directed to find every possible way to undermine and cast doubt on the figures of the opposition. It was very clear from that point on that a parliamentary budget office was needed in this country, but not a parliamentary budget office in the way that the government has bastardised the original concept—not this strange amalgam of rules that will see Treasury maintaining control and oversight through the MOU process. It is absolutely bizarre.

When you talk about the independence of the Parliamentary Budget Office, what the government are putting forward is surely nothing more than a continuation of the same advantages that they were able to direct in the form of what happened at the time of the last election. It is clear that what we need in this place for better democracy so that we can be true to the Australian people, should we ever have a hung parliament again and so that figures are accurate and unbiased, is an independent parliamentary budget office that is empowered to give information and is not tethered to the coat-tails of Treasury. That is the only way forward. When we look at amendment (2), it is clear that what the shadow Treasurer has proposed is to see restored the original concept, the original independence and the original value that the Parliamentary Budget Office was designed to have. Sadly, I think the government is not interested in that. It has seen the advantages that were derived after the previous issues and it is determined to hold on to those same sorts of controls. Whilst the government might throw it out there in the ether and in the media to suggest that somehow what we are proposing is to undermine the Parliamentary Budget Office, what we are doing is making sure that this Parliamentary Budget Office is true to the independence that is absolutely critical in this case.

The trouble is that what we have in this place is a government who is very much in favour of a facade of what this Parliamentary Budget Office might be. At the heart of what the government is about is a maintenance of that status quo—somehow holding the Treasury to a position of doing the government business, undermining a legitimate opposition and weakening the democracy that this Parliamentary Budget Office should deliver. I think it is an absolute disgrace, and there is no reason at all why this second amendment should not be accepted by the parliament. I look forward to it passing when the time comes, because what we need is a stronger democracy so I can go back to those kids in my electorate and say that we have a better democracy than we used to have. (Time expired)

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