A public finance expert says the Commonwealth Parliamentary Budgeting Office has become a branch office of Treasury and needs a wider mandate, amid calls for strengthening the oversight of ministers.
A public finance expert who says the federal Parliamentary Budget Office has been “captured” by the bureaucracy believes the election of at least 16 crossbench MPs is an opportunity to restore oversight of the executive.
This includes the PBO being able to set up its own modelling branch, allowing it to fully analyse proposed policies and take responsibility for budget forecasts and intergenerational reports.Advertisement “It would be unthinkable in Australia for the PBO to come out with a different view of the economy from that taken by Treasury,” he said.
But it plays no role in establishing the budget. It is statutorily barred from preparing economic forecasts or preparing budget estimates, whether at the whole-of-government, agency or program level. It undertakes fiscal research.
“We had a joint committee of public accounts and audit [JCPAA] that was fiercely independent, would sometimes criticise governments for problems with their budget or accounting, and would push for the rights of the parliament to hold the government accountable.“The idea that the JCPAA would now stand up for the rights of the parliament, it’s kind of laughable.
Professor Bartos said the arrival of a large number of independents in the parliament could change this.
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