A very welcome re-statement of the principles of open decision-making was made last week by the Australian National Audit Office. The office was presenting a report on grants made from the National Heritage Trust which was set up to provide money for environmental projects from some of the funds that came form the partial sale of Telstra.
Audit looked at the funding because of concerns raised in Parliament by the Opposition that the trust grants were being rorted by the Government in favour of their own electorates. On their face, those suggestions had some substance because 87 per cent of the approved projects representing about 90 per cent of their total value went to Coalition-held seats.
That fact alone was enough for minor-party MPs and others to compare the grants with the Sports rorts affair when Labor was in office. In that affair the then Sports Minister Ros Kelly was accused of allowing her office to have too great a say in how sports grants were dished out and that they had been unfairly skewed in favour of Labor seats. In the subsequent inquiry Mrs Kelly could not satisfy her critics. She said the grants applications had been sorted out on proper criteria on a great big whiteboard in her office. She was forced to resign.
Labor thought it could at least partially exculpate itself if it could successfully accuse the Coalition of playing the same game with the heritage trust. On the numbers it looked as if it had a prima facie case. But now the Audit report has come in, the prima-facie cases has collapsed. Audit found that there were good reasons for 87 per cent of the grants going to Coalition seats. More applications came from Coalition-held seats. Major program components were landcare; the Murray-Darling and farm forestry which inevitably centre around rural electorates which are nearly all held by the Coalition. The application system was similar to the landcare grants (which were predominately rural) so these people had administrative and support structures which boosted the quantity and quality of applications.
Aside from that, of course, there are a lot more Coalition seats.
Interestingly, Labor argued during the sports rorts affair that, of course, more sports grants would go to Labor seats which were often in the inner city where sports infrastructure had run down.
Given the nature of the two party system it is inevitable that the Coalition will provide extra money for programs that help places that tend to return Coalition Members and Labor will provide extra money for programs that tend to return Labor Members. It’s called looking after your own politically. But there is a danger that that can slide into corruption. That is why it is imperative that proper processes be adhered to. In the case of the heritage grants that was found to be the case.
Audit stressed the need for departments to advertise their programs so everyone gets a chance because “”access and equity are very important elements in the administration of Commonwealth programs”.
It said it was important to ensure “”that projects are considered on merit in accordance with appropriate criteria as outlined in the program decision-making documentation”.
The Audit office restated the conclusions of the sports rorts inquiry: “”Transparency in the decision-making process is the cornerstone of effective public accountability. At a minimum: administrative decisions should be fair and open; decisions should be based on principle and supported by documented reasons; and those involved in the decision-making should be accountable for their decisions.””
Australia, at least at the Federal level, has a very good record on ensuring that favouritism and inequality do not creep into the disbursement of public money. One of the main reasons is that we have a culture of the rule of law and separation of powers. In this instance, the Audit Office which answers to the legislature has independently scrutinised the action of the executive. On other occasions it might be the judiciary enforcing legislation in favour of the citizen against the executive.
Looking across the Timor Sea, the Audit Office’s restatement of the principles of executive processes could not be more timely.