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Liberals walk in on a mess
PETER COSTELLO THE DAILY TELEGRAPH SEPTEMBER 24, 2013 12:00AM
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THE tenants have moved out and the joint has been trashed. The rent used to cover all the expenses. Now there is a big shortfall. Before they moved in the Mortgage had been paid off. Now it is skyrocketing as we borrow to cover all those unpaid expenses. When they moved in there was money in the Bank for future renovations. But that has long been spent. Now the question is how to get the house back in order.
It is time to call an Assessor to inspect the damage and come up with ways to fix it. Let us call that assessor a Commission of Audit. It is a delicate job. There must be an honest appraisal of what has gone wrong and a program to fix it. The repairs have to be done in the right sequence. Everything can't be done at once but then again, the longer we delay the longer it is going to take to get things back to where they were and, in time, to where they should be for the 21st Century. We want a modern durable competitive construction.
There has been mixed success with Commissions of Audit at the State level. After it was elected in 2010, the Coalition Government in Victoria commissioned a Report which has never been released. Outside those who wrote it and those who received it, no-one knows what is in it. Maybe there is something radical in that Report - so radical the Government doesn't want to disclose it to the public. But just because it is recommended the government doesn't have to agree with it. The Assessor can recommend what it likes. It's up to the owner to decide what it is willing to pay for.
The Coalition Government in New South Wales, elected in 2011, commissioned a Report that was completed in 2012. The Report is public. It is a Status quo kind of Report. Its recommendations are not particularly specific. It is mainly focussed on getting a better framework around Government delivery of services. Nor did it lead to any burst of activity. Consistent with the inclination of the New South Wales Government it advocated a cautious and incremental approach to getting things repaired. Which means a long time.
The Queensland Commission of Audit presented an interim Report within three months of the election of the new Coalition Government. This work was embraced and implemented in the first Budget of the new Government some three months later. It led to a substantial reduction in expenses and substantial reduction in numbers in the Public Service. The final Report proposing major structural reform and debt reduction was completed within the first year of Government. Not all of those recommendations were accepted. You can blame me for that since I was the Chairman of the Audit.
The new Abbott Government and, in particular Treasurer Joe Hockey, will now be mulling over its proposed Commission of Audit. It is important they appoint people (I will not be one) who are familiar enough with the problems of the last six years to give a proper analysis of how the mistakes were made, how they can be fixed and how they can be avoided in the future. These people should try to stretch the envelope. An Audit will be of no use if it confines itself to the well-worn paths that have been visited and debated over and again by the politicians. There is no point in bringing outsiders in to regurgitate what they already know. Outsiders should bring a fresh perspective. They should give the Government new options.
At the same time there is no point in making recommendations that have no hope of implementation. A Report which cannot be released is of no value. A Report which makes hopelessly impractical suggestions is little better.
Gathering dust on my shelf is the December 2009 Report on "Australia's Future Tax System" chaired by Ken Henry then the Secretary of the Treasury. This is the Report that Labor used to justify its Resource Super Profits Tax (RSPT). Apart from that hopelessly flawed proposal very few of the suggestions were ever taken up, nor could they be since they were even less practical than the RSPT! The work on tax reform will have to be done over again.
Sitting next to that Report gathering dust is the one that gave it birth: "The Final Report of the Australia 2020 Summit". Back in 2008 Kevin Rudd, perhaps, thought his government would last to 2020. The previous Labor Government went for 13 years and the Coalition Government before his went for nearly 12. But as we know it was not to be - not for Labor and especially not for Kevin Rudd. The 2020 Summit now reads like a hopelessly antiquated time piece. The most interesting part is the pictures of all those who came to Canberra to sign on to the Rudd Agenda. Many of them would like to forget that now.
Wishful thinking is no substitute for policy. It rarely produces results.
Governments commission a lot of Reports. Some of them actually make a difference. The forthcoming Commission of Audit can make a major difference wit
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