Audit commissions - a review

Two eras of audit commissions have been identified.

In the first era from 1988 to 1996 seven commissions of audit were established: one in each of the six states, and one by the Commonwealth. The first was New South Wales, in 1988, followed by Tasmania and Victoria in 1992, Western Australia and South Australia in 1993, and Queensland and the Commonwealth in 1996.

There was then a 12-year hiatus when no commissions were appointed, reflecting the dominance of Labor governments across Australia during that period.

Then between 2008 to 2013 another seven commissions of audit have been established: Western Australia in 2008; South Australia in 2009; Victoria and New South Wales in 2011; Queensland and the Northern Territory in 2012; and as noted the Commonwealth in 2013.

Of the states, only Tasmania (which has had a Labor government since 1998) did not establish an audit commission during this second period.

Why appointed?

There are several features about governments appointing audit commissions.

First, with the exception of the South Australia's 2009 body, all audit commissions have been established by incoming non-Labor governments.

Second, again with the exception of South Australia and of Queensland in 1996, and this is an extremely important point, the appointing governments had been out of office for considerable periods.

Third, in most, but not all cases (eg Queensland in 1996), the incoming non-Labor governments inherited poor or near calamitous budgetary situations.

Thus, audit commissions, composed as they were mostly by outsiders, often, but not wholly, from the business sector, were appointed by these new non-Labor governments: partly because they were suspicious of the public bureaucracy which they perceived as being politicised and also part of the problem; partly because of the perceived need for urgent action to address budgetary problems hence their tight timeframes; partly because cutting government reflected ideological preferences of non-Labor governments. However, on this latter point, although audit commissions can be seen to have an ideological mission, many of their proposals were also becoming mainstream remedies in public sector management regardless of who was in power.

Impacts