Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The government has been warned that consulting firms are tailoring advice to earn more money instead of giving frank and fearless advice for the nation. What is your plan to address the innate conflicts of interest between government and big consulting to shut down this obscene use of billions in taxpayers' money and to enable public servants to be frank and fearless?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Goldstein for her question. One of the things that we have done, as a government, is to reduce what we regarded as an overreliance on consultants. We have made sure—and you'll see in tonight's budget the contrast which is there—that we have put on additional public servants to deal with the challenges that we had with the backlog in visas of one million people, to make sure that we deal with issues in government services, which would have dropped off the shelf if we hadn't extended funding to services like myGov beyond 30 June, which were due to end. We've made sure, as will be reflected tonight as well, that we have indicated to the Public Service, by every single one of my ministers not just talking to the secretary of their departments but talking to their whole departments, encouraging ideas to come up, encouraging that frank and fearless advice to come to government so that, as we go forward, we maximise the respect and the capacity of the Public Service.

I do that personally as well. On any occasion when I visited the UK, we had a meeting with the High Commissioner for all of the staff at the High Commission—the staff who work in Defence, the staff who work in Home Affairs, the staff who work in Immigration, the staff who work in Trade and the staff who work in Foreign Affairs and diplomatic advice as well. It is, to me, common courtesy; if you treat people with respect, you will get better outcomes. We also have the same approach towards their income and treating them with respect when it comes to proper negotiations between the government and public servants, through their union, to make sure that respect is shown.

The former government did receive some advice about the issue that has come to light when it comes to the Tax Practitioners Board. Indeed, the measures that were there from a review into the Tax Practitioners Board were given to the government of the day in 2019. But, like so much else, nothing happened. My government is committed to implementing the recommendations of that review.