Media Release

18/2010
11 May 2010

Government Delivers on Transparency and Accountability

The Rudd Government has continued to deliver on its commitment to provide more information to taxpayers on Government spending.

Lindsay Tanner, Minister for Finance and Deregulation said the 2010-11 Budget built on the Government’s Operation Sunlight reforms, establishing a new bar in budget transparency and accountability.

“Under the Howard Government a significant amount of the information provided on Budget decisions was too broad and provided little useful information to Parliament or taxpayers,” Lindsay Tanner said.

“The suite of reforms we have delivered over the past three Budgets make it substantially clearer where Government expenditure is being allocated and how effective programs are in achieving results for the community.”

In the 2010-11 Budget, the key reform has been moving Financial Management and Accountability Act (FMA Act) agencies to an improved framework for managing assets and capital expenditure.  The ‘net-cash’ approach provides agencies with capital funding in the years required, rather than funding depreciation expenses over the life of an asset.

This will prevent agencies double dipping – first through deprecation funding and then through capital costs from the Budget.  It will also focus agencies on properly planning and managing their capital budgets.

Another key reform is the release of the 2010 Budget Papers under the ‘creative commons’ framework.  This fulfils a recommendation of the Government 2.0 Taskforce for public sector information to be free, based on open standards and freely reusable and transformable.  On the whole, information in the Budget Papers will be free and open for reuse and adaption.

Lindsay Tanner said the Rudd Government will also give consideration to further reforms over the second half of 2010, including:

• introducing more sophisticated cross-portfolio approaches to delivering government programs;
• putting a focus on performance and results at the core of government operations; and
• embracing the Gov 2.0 agenda through looking at options to move government reporting online and interactive evaluation/feedback processes.

“A high level of budget transparency and accountability is vital to the health of government. The 2010-11 Budget is another step by the Rudd Government in achieving that.”

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