Page 5606 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 9 December 2009
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“more honest, more open, more flexible”. “Flexible” and “accountable” are not interchangeable.
The Greens-Labor agreement, the alliance, talks about accountability and collaboration. Higher standards of accountability, transparency and responsibility in the conduct of all public business are mentioned under “Appendix 1: agenda for parliamentary reform”. I looked for flexibility in the agreement and I could not find the word “flexibility”. If someone can point to me where flexibility leads to greater enhancement, greater accountability, greater transparency and greater responsibility, I would be pleased to see it in this agreement.
The agreement does not talk about flexibility. It talks about higher standards of accountability, not flexibility. That is the problem. What we did not hear from the Treasurer was an argument. What we heard was a plea for flexibility that the Greens as patsies have accepted and taken on board. What is required is consistency in financial reporting. What we want is guaranteed accuracy. What flexibility does is reduce that accuracy. It reduces people’s confidence in what is being reported on. If you want to chop and change, that is fine, but the sentiment of the reform—I think it was the Liberal Party in 2002 and Ted Quinlan in 2003—was to stop the chopping and changing and put in place sets of data over the long term so that they could be compared.
Instead, we simply have a lack of an argument and a concentration on this word “flexibility”. I am intrigued that people would think that defining that at one point in time you do a midyear review at 31 December takes away from you the flexibility to do them. If you want to do them quarterly, do them quarterly. If you want to do them every month, do them every month. Assemblies used to get more reporting from previous governments in some of these areas on the financials. It does not stop you doing more.
We go to the argument that the other jurisdictions have not done it. Many of them have set a fixed period in time to report on. Why? It is so they can compare and be guaranteed that the data is to that point. That is why you have 45 days after that period in which to report, so you can collate that information. It is not hard. What I hear from the Greens is just an abrogation of their supposed agenda for parliamentary reform, the purpose being to improve accountability and practice in the relationship between the executive, the parliament and the judiciary. Now it should read “the purpose being to improve flexibility in the relationship”. If you want flexibility, that is fine, but you need accountability first. If you do not have accountability, flexibility does not count for anything. When I hear “flexibility” I hear “get around”.
Ms Hunter is really becoming the financial patsy for this government. She endorsed the budget on budget day without having read the document. She did not ask the Treasurer a single question in budget estimates. There was not a single question from the Greens Treasury spokesperson in estimates to the Treasurer. That is flexible—you can choose whether you ask questions. That is flexible—I see that now. There were very few questions when we discussed annual reports recently. Now we have got flexibility instead of accountability; we have got flexibility instead of accuracy. We will not be able to compare the reports.
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