Public Sector Expenditure

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (14:54): My question is for the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer outline to the chamber the concerns expressed by the Ombudsman today about public expenditure on meals, alcohol and entertainment by public officers and our FOI laws, and what is the government's response to the Ombudsman's concerns and recommendations?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:54): I thank the honourable member for his question. The Ombudsman's two reports today bear very close consideration, I think, by all members in this particular chamber, and I would advise members to have a good hard look at either their former behaviour or perhaps the behaviour that is required by an Ombudsman of public officers.

There is a very significant criticism laced throughout the report of damning misuse of public funding or public expenditure on meals, alcohol, entertainment and hospitality under the former government. I don't have the time today to go through all of the detail, but at some subsequent stage I probably will take the opportunity of putting on the public record some of the very significant concerns.

Mr Michael Deegan, who I think everyone acknowledged was a fellow traveller of the Labor Party nationally, a former chief of staff to two Labor ministers in New South Wales, was subsequently appointed, through an unusual process here, as the chief executive of the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure. He has been found guilty of misconduct; that is, Mr Michael Deegan committed misconduct in public administration by determining an internal review under the Freedom of Information Act in respect of a request for information concerning his own meals, entertainment and purchase card expenditure.

The former department, of which he was the CEO, was found guilty of maladministration in public administration in relation to the use of public funds in this particular area. More about that on a subsequent time, but there are in particular some extremely concerning observations from the Ombudsman in relation to some of the expenditure. He highlighted $1,190.50 being spent by Mr Deegan on a meal, including an astonishing $664 being spent on alcohol.

He was also very critical of spending on restaurant meals between Mr Deegan as the CEO and his own minister, who of course is the current shadow treasurer, the member for Lee, Mr Mullighan. Let me quote specifically what the Ombudsman says in relation to this:

I am all the more concerned by DPTI's practice of funding restaurant meals between the Chief Executive and other public officers. I note, in particular, that DPTI appears to have funded at least two CBD restaurant meals between Mr Deegan and the Minister responsible for this department—at least one meeting of which involved the purchase of alcohol using departmental funds.

On a number of occasions the Ombudsman's report now refers to Mr Deegan paying for a lunch with minister Mullighan and his chief of staff, $374 at Peel Street, so just for the three of them; and for a meal with Mr Mullighan, just the two of them, at Press Food and Wine, $247.40.

There are a number of other examples, one of which relates to the Ombudsman referring to a meal paid for by Mr Deegan at The Barn Steakhouse, a very find establishment that the Leader of the Opposition would be familiar with, at a country cabinet meeting or a community cabinet meeting. The explanation for that was that Mr Deegan spent $860.50 on that meal because the minister or ministers attending had left their credits in their rooms. If anyone knows The Barn Steakhouse, it is not too far from the Steakhouse to your room to get your credit card. It would be interesting to find out which ministers, and we will pursue that at a later stage as to which ministers—indeed, there are a couple in this particular chamber to whom those questions may well be directed in a future question time.

He is quite critical of all of that. What the member for Lee now needs to explain is why he needed to meet his own chief executive at restaurants in the Adelaide CBD rather than saving taxpayers considerable funds by actually having the meeting with his own CEO in his own office in the government building. Mr Mullighan really has to explain not only that but also whether or not any officers within his office, or indeed himself, had any discussion at all with Mr Deegan and his office in relation to what was ultimately a successful ploy in refusing to release the details of the invoices until after the March 2018 election.

This particular inquiry was the result of an FOI first lodged by me in late 2016. As the opposition, having previously embarrassed ministers over their credit card expenses for meals and alcohol—and the former minister for tourism is an obvious highlight there—we were advised as an opposition that ministers were getting around that particular potential embarrassment by getting their chiefs of staff to pay. The Hon. Mr Ngo would know a little bit about this—I am not suggesting he was a chief of staff, but he was a former adviser to a former treasurer. Ministers were getting around this embarrassment by getting their chiefs of staff or their CEOs to pay for the meals, alcohol and hospitality.

The FOI was lodged in late 2016, and the CEO, with or without assistance from others, managed to successfully refuse to provide those invoices to the Ombudsman's inquiry and prevent the release of that information until after the March 2018 election. In fact, the information has only just come to light as a result of these two reports.

There are significant other elements of these two particular reports which appertain to not only the use of public funds but also the way FOI laws have been subverted in the past, which governments will need to have a look at. The Ombudsman makes a number of recommendations, one of which relates to me on behalf of the government, that is, to develop a suitable whole-of-government policy in relation to the use of credit cards by senior public officers.

I have indicated publicly on behalf of the government that we the government will look at the Ombudsman's recommendation in relation to this and see whether or not we can develop a suitable policy which is workable. We accept the fact that there needs to be certain expenditure by public officers; nevertheless, there need to be some controls and restrictions on excesses or outrageous uses of public funds in relation to alcohol, meals, entertainment and hospitality.