John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Bollards! And we also know—again, thanks to good work of Senate committees—that the Podger review, which the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives estimated would find $5 million of savings in the parliamentary departments, in fact found only $2 million of savings. Eventually, I think, the Department of Finance and Administration put the cue in the rack on that particular issue. I note that in paragraph 2.6—an important paragraph—the report says:

The departmental secretary, Ms Penfold, informed the Committee that savings from amalgamating the parliamentary service departments, as recommended by the Podger review, stood at just under $2 million. It was noted that this figure was well short of the savings estimated in the Podger review. DPS indicated it had made significant efforts to improve efficiency and reduce costs across the department independently of the review.

As I have said, we know that there have been very substantial works on security around the parliament. We now have 182 bollards—we know that, again, because of good work by the Senate estimates committee—around the perimeter of Parliament House. We also know—again, as a result of questioning at the estimates committee—that there are more than 7,000 photographic passes that allow those bollards to be retracted. I asked a question of Ms Penfold on Monday, 22 May at the budget estimates which I would care to quote. I said:

What was the cost of these bollards, again? So one of 7,000 passes goes astray and basically the whole security plan in relation to the bollards is out the window. I thought the original understanding was that there were going to be very severe limitations—Commonwealth drivers and the like—on who would have the capacity to use passes that could lower the bollards.

Ms Penfold in response said:

That was the initial thought—