Finance Minister Katy Gallagher won’t hand over correspondence relating to the latest demands for APS efficiencies. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has rebuffed a Senate order and is refusing to hand over correspondence about directing APS department heads to find efficiencies in their operating budgets.
Federal government agencies are being ordered to slash costs by up to 5 per cent to rein in public sector spending.
The Finance Department has written to Australian Public Service bosses demanding details of how they will find the savings.
The new directive is in addition to the current 1 per cent efficiency dividend, which is already aimed at reducing departmental operating expenses.
The Senate ordered Senator Gallagher, who is also Minister for the Public Service, to table all correspondence relating to the directive by last Friday (28 November).
That order was made after independent ACT Senator David Pocock and shadow finance and public service minister Senator James Paterson teamed up to successfully pass it.
The Senate order was that all letters, emails, texts and instant messages between specific Ministers discussing the issue, as well as any such messaging and memos to and from departments, be tabled.
The deadline came and went without any documents or correspondence being released.
Instead, Senator Gallagher wrote to Senate President Sue Lines to claim public interest immunity for refusing to hand over the letters.
The Minister said the communications are part of Cabinet deliberations for the next federal budget.
“It is well recognised under longstanding conventions that it is in the public interest to preserve the confidentiality of Cabinet deliberations to ensure the best possible decisions are made following thorough consideration and discussion of relevant matters within Cabinet,” Senator Gallagher wrote.
“Through every budget process, the government seeks to ensure that government spending is efficient and represents value for money for Australian taxpayers.
“This includes identifying lowest priority areas of spending and considering whether that spending should be redirected to higher priority areas.”
Senator Pocock expressed his outrage over Senator Gallagher’s snub of the order.
He said Labor was determined to remain one of the most secretive governments on record, and that it was farcical to claim public interest immunity when the documents were being openly discussed and revealed in the media.
Senator Paterson described the refusal to comply with the order as “arrogant” and a “contempt for transparency and scrutiny”.
Senator Pocock and Paterson had another team-up when grilling Australian Public Service Commissioner Gordon de Brouwer during his appearance before Senate Estimates hearings on Tuesday (3 December).
The Commissioner had to quickly backtrack on his comments about senior public servants giving advice to Ministers through yellow sticky notes attached to briefings, which would often get lost, believing it amounted to “genuine advice” to the government.
While Dr de Brouwer told the hearing that it was a “lousy way to run advice to Ministers” and was “being selective” in what was written down, Senator Pocock chimed in a number of times to point out that the practice was actually illegal.
The Commissioner said it wasn’t, only to be pulled up by Senator Paterson.
Senator Paterson: Senator Pocock told you when you said that public servants are writing things on sticky notes and then losing those sticky notes, that ‘that’s illegal’ and you said to him ‘no it wasn’t’.
Commissioner de Brouwer: I don’t think the sticky notes themselves are illegal.
Paterson: But failing to keep records is.
Commissioner: Yeah, but no … uh .. I take that, Senator. I um, um, I, I understand that.
Paterson: I’d be very concerned if the public servants watching this, thinking the head of the APSC is sanctifying writing what you really want to say on a sticky note and losing that sticky note rather than putting in a proper briefing and keeping records.
Commissioner: It’s not a practice I’ve done, or I accept, or I would, or I think is right. But I am just observing that public servants, in my experience, I do know public servants who have done that in the past.
This year’s final Supplementary Budget Estimates hearings continue this week.
