THE Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit will hold public hearings on Friday, March 3, for its inquiries into Commonwealth grants administration and Commonwealth procurement.
The grants inquiry is considering ways to strengthen the integrity and improve the administration of Commonwealth grants. The inquiry follows recent audits by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) which have uncovered some issues with the management of certain programs.
The hearing will focus on Commuter Car Parks projects within the Urban Congestion Fund, the Building Better Regions Fund, and the Safer Communities Program.
Committee Chair Julian Hill MP noted concerns raised in these audit reports about the effectiveness and fairness of grants administration.
"The committee will look into how grants were being awarded, what changes agencies are making to address the problems uncovered by the audit office, and what else needs to be done," Mr Hill said.
The procurement inquiry will hear from the ANAO about its recent information report on trends in Australian government procurement reporting on the AusTender website.
The report makes several recommendations to the Commonwealth and Northern Territory governments in the wake of the sunsetting of the Stronger Futures Act last year.
Committee Chair Senator Patrick Dodson said, "The committee believed investment in support services and programs is essential to improving socio‑economic outcomes, especially for people living in town camps, remote communities and homelands."
The committee called for locally-led, place-based initiatives to support community development.
"Governments need to listen and acting on what communities say will work best for them," Senator Dodson said.
For more information about this committee and its report, visit the inquiry webpage.
Committee Chair, Julian Hill MP, said, “It is clear that ParentsNext is not the flexible, compassionate, supportive service that is needed. It has become too damaged and should be replaced with a supportive service to help vulnerable parents.
“Governments have a responsibility to support parents to achieve full economic and social participation. This is a moral imperative and an economic priority.
“Parents have a right to choose to actively parent their babies and very young children, and this right should not be available only to wealthy parents. Caring for young children is work which used to be valued in its own right, and a mandatory focus on preparing parents of very young children for future employment is a very patriarchal view of caring and doesn’t take account of enormous diversity in the needs of families and children.
“The committee recommends sweeping changes to ParentsNext before it is abolished to allow a new pre-vocational service to be designed and put in place. These include the removal of Parenting Payment cancellations, full payment suspensions and onerous participation and reporting requirements.
“Major changes are also proposed to the way a future service is delivered, including reducing competition between providers and having a public sector agency — probably Services Australia — deliver the service in at least a few regions.
“We thank the inspiring parents and workers who spoke up for their time and, at times raw, honesty. Those conversations directly inform our report and will stay with us as we continue our work.”
The committee’s unanimous report makes 30 recommendations. Key recommendations include that ParentsNext be abolished at the end of its current contract and replaced with a pre-vocational service focused on building participants’ capacity and helping them realise their individual goals, and which truly values parenting. The service must be co-designed with people who will be most impacted by the new service.
Most of the committee’s other recommendations relate to design and implementation of the new service, including draft eligibility and participation requirements, compliance and enforcement; commissioning and service delivery; funding and resources; skills and training requirements; and supporting innovation, experimentation, and robust, data-driven evaluation.
To allow for the co-design and implementation of the new service, short contract extensions will be required. In the meantime, the committee has called for a transition plan to be released by the government by this July, outlining changes that can be implemented as soon as possible, to address serious concerns identified and provide ParentsNext participants with a more positive and supportive experience before the new service is in place.
Some of the themes and issues covered in this interim report, such as skills and training for frontline staff, and the role of government in service delivery, will also be examined as part of the committee’s broader in inquiry into Workforce Australia Employment Services.
Information about the inquiry, including the interim report, Terms of Reference, future public hearings, published submissions and hearing transcripts, is available on the inquiry website.
Chair of the Trade Subcommittee, Senator Deborah O’Neill said, "Australia’s international education and tourism sectors have experienced many challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when Australia’s borders closed."
The Subcommittee will hear evidence from higher education institutions, peak bodies, regulatory bodies, and international students to gain an understanding of the challenges and opportunities for growth in each sector.
"Noting that Australia has since opened its borders, the Subcommittee is interested to hear about how both sectors are recovering and rebuilding. The inquiry will assist the Subcommittee to understand different experiences and views and it is hoped it will provide greater insight into how the Australian Government can support these sectors as they recover from the effects of COVID-19 border closures," Senator O’Neill said.
Further information about the inquiry and the public hearings program are available on the inquiry webpage.
Public hearings details
Sydney Date: Thursday, 2 March 2023 Venue: Room 3, Level 8, Building 8 (UTS Business School: 14 - 28 Ultimo Road, Ultimo, Sydney) Time: 8:40am – 2:30pm (AEDT)
The hearing will also be live streamed on the APH website: aph.gov.au/live.
SUPERANNUATION tax concessions must be reformed to reduce inequality and ensure government assistance is targeted to those who need it the most, according to the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS).
With one in eight people in Australia living in poverty and the cost of living crisis continuing to bite, the Federal Government is right to scrutinise unaffordable, unfair tax breaks for the wealthiest in our society, ACOSS CEO Cassandra Goldie said.
She said superannuation concessions "cost the community an eye-watering $52 billion a year -- money that could be used to reduce poverty and fund essential public services such as health and aged care".
Ms Goldie welcomed the Treasurer’s move to legislate an objective for superannuation to make sure the system is equitable and sustainable.
“The Treasurer is absolutely right to be concerned about the ballooning cost and inequity of tax breaks for superannuation, which do not benefit people on the lowest incomes,” she said.
“The system has become a tax avoidance scheme that allows people who are already very well off, who are mostly men, to build up huge balances that are more than enough for a decent retirement and often passed on to adult children.
“Today at the Senate Inquiry into poverty, I urged the government to do more to assist the millions of people who are struggling to afford the essentials of life such as rent, food, energy and medicines.
“To provide a fair and inclusive society we must make the right choices about who needs more government help and who needs less. Scrutinising unfair super tax breaks is a useful place to start.”
ACOSS presented what it called 'key facts' at the hearing that summed up the situation today:
Superannuation tax concessions cost the Budget $52 billion a year, almost the cost of the Age Pension ($55 billion);
Most of the benefit of superannuation tax breaks goes to the highest 20 percent of people by income; and
Once a fund member retires, the investment income of their account is completely tax free. This is not sustainable when governments are already struggling with the costs of quality health and aged care.
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