Media Release

16/2008
13 May 2008

Government to improve the transparency and accountability of
Public Service programs and funding

Australian taxpayers will get more information about how their taxes are being spent in the 2008-09 and future Budgets after the Rudd Labor Government increases transparency and improves the information provided to Parliament under the Operation Sunlight reforms.

Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner, said “Operation Sunlight, Labor’s plan to improve Budget transparency, reforms the system of reporting on the funds provided to agencies implementing the Government’s programs and services and the results achieved with those funds.”

“Under the Howard Government, too many budget decisions were hidden or unavailable, with descriptions of programs and services often very broad and providing little useful information to Parliament or taxpayers.”

The Government will introduce a number of reforms in this Budget, including:

• providing additional Budget Paper information, including a register of Special Accounts held by agencies and information on agency Special Appropriations, the source of almost 80 per cent of all government funding;
• redesigning agency Portfolio Budget Statements to provide a more strategic focus, an increased emphasis on agency performance and a newly introduced Resource Statement to inform readers of all of the funds available to an agency; and
• reducing three sets of budget financial statements, which all measured the same economic activities, to one comprehensive set of financial statements which complies with the Charter of Budget Honesty.

The Government, under Operation Sunlight, will reform the way the Budget decisions and agency funding are reported. Further announcements will be made during the course of 2008 as additional reforms are developed and implemented.

These changes will also take into account the advice of Democrat’s Senator Andrew Murray, who is conducting a non-partisan review of Budget transparency issues that is to be finalised before the end of June 2008.

“Operation Sunlight is a long-term investment in greater accountability for this and future governments. Parliament and Australian taxpayers have a right to know how their taxes are being spent and these reforms are the first in a series that will provide that knowledge,” Mr Tanner said.

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