 Political Corrections
with Margo Kingston
Huff and Bluff Over
Snouts in the Trough
Imagine a completely open-ended government program where the public wasn't told how much was spent, spending records were spread all over the place and there was no obligation to repay false claims.
Red hot, huh? The responsible minister's head would roll, right? The scam would be fixed pronto, wouldn't it?
You'd be quite right to say, wouldn't you, that such a scheme amounted to economic treason?
Welcome to the politician's entitlements 'system'. And welcome to the government's outright refusal to do anything about it.
Auditor-General Pat Barrett, accountant, has taken his time in becoming a national hero. He's old-fashioned enough to believe in that archaic concept, 'the public interest'. He dresses in daggy grey suits and is so shy he usually talks to the ground.
Last year, Barrett saved our priceless public information technology assets from wholesale handover to the private sector. Finance minister John Fahey wanted us to pay the private sector to asset strip the specialised expertise of the CSIRO, the bureau of meteorology, the national archives, the courts and even the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
Barrett exposed the scam in a report which found most of Fahey's alleged savings were illusory. An icon of the private sector, Australian Stock Exchange chief Dick Humphry, did a review, and found himself in the embarrassingly ironic position of having to give the government a basic lecture on the meaning of the public interest.
Last week, Barrett exposed another Fahey disaster – in the search for short term savings, he'd instructed his compliant department to sell off most of our public buildings under a formula which guarantees those 'savings' will be quickly outstripped by extra costs for renting down the line. He lumped extra costs onto the next generation and called himself a hero.
Last year, the Democrats, independents and Labor outnumbered Coalition Senators to instruct Barrett find out what we were spending on pollies.
Apart from their salaries, each pollie on average costs us more than $1.5 million a year.
The web of entitlements is not centrally administered, has no definition of what is and is not electoral business, is not subject to audit and is largely uncapped. In an admission that's downright sinister, the Finance Department said it had legal advice that unlike every other government spending program, neither its officials or MPs were subject to the otherwise universal requirement that spending be an efficient and effective use of public funds.
So, a politician can, as one did, spend nearly $95,000 in a year on 'photographic services'. Another can rack up more than $2,600 a week in car expenses. If you're honest and careful, your reward is zilch. If you fleece the taxpayer you're a winner.
Barrett made 28 recommendations. Finance told him to get stuffed on 25 of them. Some examples.
1. Finance propose a more transparent and accountable system. No.
2. Finance produce guidelines on what activities do and don't properly comprise parliamentary and electoral business. No.
3.. Finance propose law reform to set out the legal obligations of politicians. No.
4. Finance ensure entitlements records are securely stored and centralised. No.
5. Finance report to parliament the annual cost of entitlements and conduct regular audits. No.
7. Finance develop a comprehensive debt management strategy to recover false claims. No.
9. Each department maintain records that properly document its minister's expenditure and say how it relates to ministerial duties. Home departments: Yes. Finance: No.
Former opposition leaders John Hewson had an idea that would fix this mess and save us money. In Fightback!, his 1993 election policy, he said each MP should get 'a global budget' to pay for their offices, staff, travel, stationery, telephones and postage.
Hewson set the total of the global budgets at 10 percent below present levels. Healthy discipline for them – the strange experience of managing within a budget and being subject to regular audit – and savings for us.
'Members and senators will be free to determine their own spending priorities within their global budget. For example, members can choose whether to use hire cars or Cabcharge.' Peter Reith's Telecard would never have been a story.
We'd save the 10 percent and the army of bureaucrats who administer the mess. We'd spare ourselves the regular rorts stories that demean the political process. We'd score ourselves a government with a smidgen of credibility when it blasted ordinary workers for using the only power they have – the withdrawal of their labour – to force employers to meet their obligations to pay their entitlements.
For a full copy of Barrett's audit report, go to www.anao.gov.au and click on What's New.
Email: mkingston@mail.fairfax.com.au
Margo's web diary - www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/webdiary/
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