The Senate inquisition

The Senate Select Committee into the Abbott Government's Commission of Audit held a public inquisition of the commissioners this week. I use the word inquisition advisedly because surely this senate committee is setting out on a witch hunt.

Not only has the Commission of Audit (CoA) not presented its report to government, it has not even finished writing it. Notwithstanding this, the inquisitors expected the commissioners to release their preliminary findings for critique.

Unsurprisingly they declined to do so.

The chair of the select committee, Greens senator Richard Di Natale, suggested that the CoA should be looking at ways to raise revenue. As the purpose of the CoA is to identify inefficiencies in public spending and recommend savings options, this was also not taken up.

And rightly so. The CoA has no executive or legislative power of any kind. The commissioners are tasked with making recommendations that the government may choose to accept or reject. The decision rests with those elected by the people to govern.

Indeed, often the recommendations of government reviews are rejected; for example, almost none of the 138 recommendations of the Henry Tax Review were implemented by the previous government.

Nor does the CoA have any power to compel the government to break its election promises (unlike the Senate, which is currently preventing the government from implementing its promise to repeal the carbon tax).

So if the CoA can only provide advice to government, what was the purpose of the public hearings? Why not hold hearings after the CoA's report has been published? Better still; why not address those recommendations of the CoA that actually become government policy?

The agenda of some of those on the inquisition was made clear by the closing remarks of Di Natalie, who noted the harms arising from reducing government spending. Their aim is to cast doubt on the validity of the CoA's recommendations. Their purpose is to oppose any reduction in the size of government at all.

They would also like the Coalition government to take the political heat for economically deleterious tax rises.

If there was a positive to come from these proceedings, it was hearing the commissioners make clear that Australia must act now to prepare for our serious future challenges. It shows that our TARGET30 message is cutting through.

But we cannot forget there are powerful forces opposed to any reduction in the size of government. The mere existence of a body recommending a reduction in government spending brought out the inquisition. And I think no-one expected that!

Simon Cowan is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.