Have Recent Financial Reforms Improved Financial Accountability in the Australian Commonwealth Public Sector?

Australasian Accounting Business & Finance Journal, Aug 2007 by Bowrey, Graham

Appropriation Bills

DOFA (2006b) explains that Appropriation bills are the bills that "appropriate money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund to provide funds for government and parliamentary expenditure". The creation of these bills is inline with the requirements outlined under section 83 of the Australian Constitution which states that funds can only be drawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund under an appropriation made by law (Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act). Appropriation bills are introduced into the House of Representatives by the Treasurer (on budget night in May each year), and are then tabled in the Senate. Two of the key functions of the Senate are to review legislative (including appropriation bills) and other proposals initiated in the House of Representatives and "to provide adequate scrutiny of financial measures, especially by committees considering estimates" (Evans, 2004). The committees that review the appropriations are called Senate legislation committees.

The following diagram outlines the basic flow from government organisations developing internal strategic plans to achieve the government agreed outcomes to the receipt of funds to implement the tasks and activities on the strategic plans.

The next section will provide a brief outline of the structure and role, in relation to reviewing various government agencies budget estimates, of the Senate legislation committees.

Senate Legislation Committees

Twice each year the Senate refers the estimates of the proposed annual expenditure of government departments and authorities, contained in the appropriation bills, to one of its legislation committees for their examination and reporting. These committees consist of six senators - three from the government (one of whom is the committee chair), two from the opposition and one representing the minority parties or independents (Senate Brief 5). However it is also quite normal for other senators to attend the hearing and indeed participate in the hearing. Yet their participation during the hearings is limited, for example they cannot participate in specific functions of the committee such as voting on points of order raised during the hearing. Harry Evans (2004), then Clerk of the Senate, describes how the legislation committees' scrutiny of the estimates in appropriation bills allows the Senate to assess the performance of the public service and its administration of government policy and programs. One of the interesting points of these estimates hearings is that one of the rules of the committee, standing order 26, explains the committee must take all evidence in public. Indeed not only is it possible for members of the public to sit-in on the committee hearings, it is also possible to watch the proceeding live on the Parliament of Australia's website and obtain complete transcripts, Hansard, of the meeting via the same website. This level of access to the committees can be seen as a component of discharging the accountabilities of the government and parliament through an apparent high level of transparency.