A ‘cancer on our democracy’: How to fix Australia’s pork-barrelling crisis | Jess_Irvine
Amid higher fuel and food costs, and the spectre of looming interest rate hikes, Australian families are busily battening down the hatches on their household budgets.
Few Australians begrudge the money governments spend on public goods and services which pass a cost-benefit analysis and enhance our national quality of living. Good schools, hospitals, roads and welfare for the less fortunate, for example.I’ve been closely observing the election spending commitments of the two major political parties as a journalist since the 2007 election. This year, I happily passed the baton to my fellow spreadsheet wizards Shane Wright and Katina Curtis.
This lack of transparency not only keeps voters in the dark, it allows for simply bad spending proposals to flourish. The other website is that of the Parliamentary Budget Office, an independent agency which reports directly to parliament, not executive government. The PBO is a marvellous democratic innovation, created about a decade ago at the request of several independent MPs as a condition of siding with Julia Gillard to avoid a hung parliament.The PBO is tasked with compiling a complete list of the parties’ election commitments. Yay! This list, however, is not released until well after polling day.
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