Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, I thank the Treasurer for his second reading speech. The Greens will be supporting this bill. I thank departmental staff for the briefings, two briefings now on this bill. That has been very useful as elements of this bill are complicated. As I go through and articulate our support for this bill, I will be seeking some clarifications from the Treasurer.
The origins of this bill are from some fundamental failures in governance and oversight of government businesses. The minister’s points laying out the importance of government businesses to us as Tasmanians are absolutely right. They deliver a whole raft of different services and inputs into our economy that are really important. It’s welcome to hear that this is just the start of the reform; that there will be subsequent bills that will be consulted on and address outstanding issues.
While these reforms are welcome, they won’t stop bad decisions being made where they are bad decisions that are endorsed by the government. We have recently seen, from the Greens’ perspective, a number of different bad decisions being made. Marinus Link is a perfect example, whereby there are myriad red flags that are in the whole estate business case that are articulating problems and challenges that the government should have seen, that were effectively pushed in there and written by Treasury. They are red flags that are not being flown by the government businesses. This is not a catch-all and it doesn’t address bad decisions that are being pushed by government businesses that are endorsed by government. While not a government business, it is a government entity. I put on the record that the Macquarie Point Stadium is in that space.
That being said, and without casting any aspersions on the bill, I also respectfully suggest to the Treasurer that the claim that this bill is of, and, I quote, ‘paramount importance to the future prosperity of all Tasmanians’ is perhaps slightly overstating the impact of the bill, somewhat.
The bill introduces a requirement that if two shareholder ministers of a government business are the same person, another minister is selected as the second minister – with the exception of TASCORP where the minister may, but is not required to, nominate a second shareholder minister. The Greens are broadly supportive of this. However, experience tells us that more oversight for a GBE is certainly not a bad thing. I won’t go into the level of detail that the shadow treasurer has regarding some of the past failures, but more oversight is clearly going to be a good thing.
We assume that TASCORP has been treated differently because it is the only GBE, I believe, where the Treasurer is the only portfolio minister. However, I would like the Treasurer to outline the rationale for this distinction. For all the other GBEs, there’s a requirement for a second shareholder minister to be selected where there is no relevant portfolio. Why is TASCORP any different? It’s not clear to me why it would be the case that it has been determined that if a minister is both the Treasurer and the relevant portfolio minister, one person should not be the shareholder minister for both, whereas when the Treasurer is the only portfolio minister, it is okay for there to only be one shareholder minister. The rationale for the reform seems to be that there should be two accountable ministers, regardless of portfolio relevance – to offer essentially a check and balance, a second set of eyes. It’s not clear why this principle would not be relevant to TASCORP, other than perhaps that TASCORP has presumably always only had one responsible shareholder minister.
The bill also allows ministers to issue directions to GBEs and state‑owned companies. These directions must be tabled unless the board requests the directions not be tabled on grounds of damage to the company, provision of unreasonable advantage, prejudicing an investigation, or it would be a breach of confidentiality. In such an event a statement that a direction has been given must still be tabled. On face value these provisions seem to fairly balance transparency with genuine public interest in non-disclosure. However, the Right to Information Act 2009 also on its face provides this fair balance. The practice of these sorts of things when there is no meaningful check and balance can often differ from a fair reading of the legislation.
My question, Treasurer, is what sort of process, if any, would be available to dispute the grounds on which directions are not tabled? Would Solicitor‑General advice be required to confirm that is appropriate?
I also note that one GBE requested an amendment to ensure a GBE’s obligations to comply with the direction are paused if a GBE has lodged a valid objection. Please correct me if I’m mistaken, but it appears that this has not been adopted. Their suggested amendment seems quite reasonable, particularly if the GBE believes that the direction would undermine or be contrary to another obligation they have. If you can, would you be able to respond to this concern, please, Treasurer?
The bill also requires that the board must advise the shareholder ministers of progress against the direction at set intervals. Is there a reason that these updates are not required to be tabled?
The bill also includes a requirement to develop a statement of corporate intent for each financial year, as well as a requirement to make a report to shareholder ministers on the first six months of each financial year. This report must also be published online and is subject to the same exemptions available in respect of directions. Again, these are sensible and supportable measures, notwithstanding my previous comments regarding direction exemptions.
Speaker, the bill does include a requirement on GBEs to notify shareholder ministers of adverse circumstances. This is obviously reasonable and welcome. However, there is again no requirement to provide an update to parliament. The Greens’ experience of scandals involving GBEs in this place is generally that there is not a failure of GBEs to notify the government, but a failure of the government to pass that information on to the public and to the parliament. Treasurer, what’s your argument for not requiring this information to be made available to the parliament, accepting of course that the nature of some information may not be appropriate to be made public?
The bill also includes a requirement to develop and make public sponsorship frameworks in accordance with treasurer’s instructions. I’m curious to understand the genesis of this amendment. Have there been poor decisions made about sponsorships in the past that this is attempting to curtail and address, or is this an attempt to influence GBEs to provide sponsorships to organisations that the government has an interest in seeing receive a sponsorship? Metro Tasmanian in this regard raised some interesting concerns and reasonable matters in their submission. To quote them:
In the development of the Treasury instructions or guidelines to support this legislative amendment, the government may like to consider setting thresholds for certain requirements to ensure efficient use of resources and decision‑making. This will avoid relatively low‑value support that is provided, for example, to community‑based organisations being tied up in unnecessary red tape. Additionally, it would be helpful to provide clarity as to whether the scope of the instruction is intended to cover financial contributions only, or whether it includes the provision of value in kind, and if so, how that is determined.
I note the Public Trustee also recommended a materiality threshold be adopted in the instruction and Tasmanian Irrigation made a similar recommendation; are you able to outline your thoughts on their comments, and how the Treasurer’s instruction in relation to sponsorships would be intended to address these matters?
Finally, the bill provides a prohibition on a person being appointed as a director if they have served two terms or previously served as a CEO, except in extenuating circumstances. The rationale of renewal does have merit. However, it must be acknowledged that terms, for those GBEs governed by the Government Business Enterprises Act 1995 at least, are a maximum of three years. This is an effective limit of six years at the maximum. It would seem to be a waste for an effective director to be limited to six years if they are the best for the job and they are performing appropriately.
I note that STT and TasNetworks recommended a three‑term threshold, whereas Tasmanian Irrigation noted they already in practice have two‑year limits. What is the government’s rationale for a two‑term limit over, for example, a three-year one?
That concludes my contribution to the bill. I look forward to the Treasurer’s response to the questions that I have raised, and I obviously also welcome the government’s approach to reforming government business governance. It is overdue; it is needed and history in this place in recent times, and in times further past, has demonstrated there have been significant failures and those failures need to be addressed. It’s welcome that there has been a process to identify and analyse them and come up with a range of reforms that are being introduced in this Bill as has been outlined, the first tranche of those reforms.
