Parliamentary committee scrutiny of the Commonwealth Ombudsman—Private Member’s Bill

  

Source: Commonwealth Ombudsman
     2009-10 Annual Report

A Private Member’s Bill introduced on 1 November 2011 in the Senate by Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown seeks to bring the operation, functions and resourcing of the Commonwealth Ombudsman under the scrutiny of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit. The Commonwealth Ombudsman is an independent statutory office established by the Ombudsman Act 1976 (Cth).

The Public Accounts and Audit Committee Amendment (Ombudsman) Bill 2011 follows the resignation of the former Ombudsman, Allan Asher, in late October 2011 over his provision of suggested questions to Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young prior to the May 2011 Senate Budget Estimates hearings. In a statement to the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee at the October 2011 Supplementary Budget Estimates hearings, Asher indicated that his motivation for providing the questions to Senator Hanson-Young had been to raise concerns over resourcing of the Ombudsman’s office. On 2 November 2011 the Special Minister of State, the Hon Gary Gray, made a ministerial statement in relation to Asher’s resignation.

Parliamentary Budget Offices

According to research conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) there has been a growing trend towards greater involvement of national legislatures in budgetary matters in order to increase transparency and accountability of budget processes. The OECD's 2007 project, the International Budget Practices and Procedures database, indicated that out of the 97 countries surveyed, 29 countries had a specialised budget research office and 61 did not. In particular, the survey found that more than half of all the countries included in the study had a larger budgetary role than they had a decade earlier.