Senator PAYNE (4:10 PM) —There is one issue upon which the opposition and the government senators are in heated agreement and that is the eminent qualifications of John Fahey for the role to which he has been appointed. That is not currently in dispute. I feel like I am living in a parallel universe, listening to some of the things that have come from members of the government in this discussion, and our incredulity comes from the fact that we are apparently governed—and I use the word loosely —by a federal government that feels the need to appoint what is charmingly titled an Australian Government Reconstruction Inspectorate. I challenge anyone to find something that edifying in the pages of George Orwell, quite frankly.

The role of the Reconstruction Inspectorate is, to quote from the Prime Minister’s statement of Monday of this week, to increase the scrutiny and accountability of rebuilding projects. The tasks that the inspectorate will undertake include scrutinising rebuilding contracts; directly inspecting projects to ensure they are meeting progress milestones—I do have a mental picture of Mr Fahey and Mr Orgill and Ms Beauchamp and Mr Albrecht and Mr Sheerin in gumboots, or whatever required footwear is avail-able, physically inspecting reconstruction projects; investigating complaints or issues raised by the public; working directly with state reconstruction agencies to develop contractual frameworks, tendering processes and project management systems; scrutinising requests for reimbursement by local government for projects completed for the purposes of reconstruction; and examining high-value or complex projects prior to execution.

They are the tasks of this so-called inspectorate. Quite frankly, this begs the question: what is the government itself doing? What is the role of the Commonwealth bureaucracy in this nation in 2011? We saw what its role was in 2010—we have lived through pink batts and we have lived through the fires in roofs, and we have lived through the BER; we have seen all of that. Is there nothing to be learned from those processes within the Commonwealth bureaucracy? Senator Bishop tells us that we have in fact been speaking about the wrong minister here today—he says it is not a reflection on the finance minister; apparently it is a reflection on Senator Ludwig and Mr McClelland because they are the responsible ministers and their departments are the responsible departments. Two of them. It is absolutely mind blowing that we need a Reconstruction Inspectorate to do the job of scrutiny that the Commonwealth is charged with itself.

Senator Bishop said this afternoon that this is about full and proper scrutiny. I believe he also used the word ‘transparency’. He said it is about serious levels of accountability and about serious levels of responsibility in the disbursement of government funds. Well what does a government do if it cannot do that job? I think the answer is in the silence. The answer is that if the government is not competent to do that, it is not competent to govern. The appointment of this committee is an important decision by government. It is an interesting admission that the government cannot manage its own business. Is the issue that with Ken Henry leaving everyone with an audit capacity is going too? What is actually going on within the structure of the system that means we need this sort of operation? I would have thought that the Australian people would have a reasonable expectation that their government is capable of managing this process.

I, along with every other speaker—in my case, a particular long-term awareness of and great admiration for the capacity of former Premier of New South Wales and former federal finance minister John Fahey—would commend the appointment of John Fahey. There is no question about that, or the appointment to any role to which he wished to turn his hand. But the admission by government that it is not capable of doing this job itself is breathtaking. It is the sort of admission that should stop the presses. It is the sort of admission that should make the Australian people stand still and say, ‘What is going on? What do we expect from the Commonwealth government, the Commonwealth bureaucracy, if they are not capable of dealing with this very, very important initiative themselves?’ The answer is: they got the wrong government.

Question agreed to.