Santo Santoro (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

The government has given careful consideration to these amendments, as it always does to amendments that are put before the Senate. With respect to the proposers and the contents of the amendments, the government regards the changes as cumbersome and unnecessary. The legislation clarifies accountability between the Australian Institute of Family Studies and the minister. The changes to the AIFS legislation are part of the whole-of-government reform process concerning the governance of statutory authorities and the review of the corporate governance of statutory authorities and office holdersthe 2003 Uhrig review. Under the Uhrig review, all statutory authorities are being assessed and their governance arrangements reviewed and standardised as appropriate. This legislation updates and refines existing governance arrangements in the AIFS. It bring the AIFS into line with other statutory authorities that have been assessed under the Uhrig review, including Austrade and the Future Fund, and with newly established agencies, such as Cancer Australia.

The changes to the AIFS legislation will provide increased efficiency in the operations and activities of the AIFS and clarify roles and responsibilities. The intention of the legislation is to streamline arrangements and avoid unnecessary regulation. These amendments will not assist in achieving these objectives as they build an enormous amount of bureaucracy into the process. The intention is for the AIFS and its director to be accountable to the minister. The minister, with cabinet agreement, will be responsible for making the appointment and for the overall performance of the AIFS. It is not appropriate to diffuse responsibility for the appointment, as this proposal does. The AIFS is a statutory agency and the director is a statutory office holder. As such, the director is not an employee for the purposes of the Public Service Act. Senator Bartlett’s suggestions that have been moved by Senator Allison suggest that the ministers table a statement setting out details of rejected candidates. That is entirely inappropriate, as it would be unfair to those candidates not selected for their names to be discussed in parliament. The Public Service Commissioner generally does not play a role in or assist ministers with such statutory appointments.

The requirement for the Public Service Commissioner to do an annual audit and report in the commission’s annual report would be a very unusual and narrow function to add to the commissioner’s responsibility and probably, in any event, one which would be able to be exercised no more frequently than one year in five. The commissioner’s functions are set out in the Public Service Act, and this proposal for the AIFS director is not generally consistent with those functions, which generally deal with systemic issues affecting the Australian Public Service and its employees. For the abovementioned reasons, the government will not be accepting or supporting the amendments.

Question negatived.