Cutting spending – there must be a better way

The Task Force found numerous programs that had passed their used by date, were no longer warranted and required no legislative amendments.

Of course, the Task Force was not without its critics. That a third of its proposals related to rural industries and regions was seen by some as an attack on country people and hence the National Party’s electoral base.

Nevertheless, many of these had been the result of coalition politics, where the National Party had extracted funding and concessions from their Liberal Party partner as the price of its support and keeping the coalition in office. Many of these were  overdue for a serious cleanout.

Whitlam regarded the Coombs Task Force as one of the “best” inquiries his government established. He boasted that “no other government has applied such a searching scrutiny to the expenditure of public money”. That the Whitlam Government failed to exercise the recommended fiscal discipline till it was too late is not to deny the value of the Coombs Task Force. It was open, its criteria clear, its assessments sound and its report public.

While Labor governments have distanced themselves from the Whitlam administration, the Coombs Task Force is one idea worthy of adoption. If properly established, such a body could inject needed independent analysis into current controversies about expenditure restraint – an area fraught with partisanship and misinformation.