Wednesday, 1 November 2023

 Mathew HILAKARI (Point Cook) (10:12): I will stay on my feet. I talk of course to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee’s (PAEC) report relating to the appointment of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Our report was handed down in October of this year, which was exceedingly wonderful. The chair of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee the member for Laverton is not in the chamber at the moment, but I want to just pay particular tribute to her; to a former member of the committee the member for Box Hill, who is in the chamber; to a member for Western Victoria from the other place Bev McArthur, and particularly I note her incisive questioning; and the member for Melbourne, who I cannot see in the chamber at this time. We all played a pretty critical role in making sure that we got the PBO set up and recommended to the Treasurer.

Of course PAEC has a number of important roles, one of which is to recommend the appointment of the PBO to the Treasurer. Amongst its other roles are ensuring the PBO is held to account and observing their annual reporting and their operations. I would like to thank the secretariat, who always provide great service to all the committees across the Parliament: Dr Caroline Williams, the executive officer; Dr Krystle Gatt Rapa, the lead analyst; Caitlin Wu, analyst; and Jacqueline Coleman, the administrative assistant. We always rely so much on their advice and support.

The member for Laverton in her foreword said:

Victoria is the first Australian state or territory to have established an ongoing Parliamentary Budget Office …

It was created back in 2017. I think it is a particular point of pride for this chamber that we have been leaders in this space, because the Parliamentary Budget Office provides costings, advisory services and analysis for all members of this Parliament. That is a really important thing, because we want the policy ideas that we put forward to be accurate, well costed and well thought through, and the Parliamentary Budget Office provides that support. We have now seen two elections in which the Parliamentary Budget Office has provided that support and those election costings.

As part of this recruitment campaign Jennifer D’Arcy-Smith from Watermark Search played an incredibly important role in bringing together particularly some really high-quality candidates. The previous Parliamentary Budget Officer was Mr Anthony Close, and I want to acknowledge the importance of founding the office and setting those foundations well for all future Parliamentary Budget Officers. He undertook a five-year term. Of course the objectives of the PBO are to inform policy development and public debate in the Parliament and in the broader Victorian community. There is no more important time than this to be able to provide good factual information to the community, when there is such a lack of good factual information which has been propagated more broadly. For a Parliament to have this support and advice is incredibly important.

Like all of these offices, they are led by an individual, and that individual has to support a team – in this case, 24 full-time equivalent staff in the lead-up to the last election. So they need to be mindful about how they manage their resources well. A budget of $3.4 million in 2023–24 is not an insubstantial amount to support staff and finances, to support members of the opposition and the crossbench in particular, and also members of the government. I am one who has used such a service before. I want to also pay tribute to some of the others on the selection panel who were of a really high quality. We had Yves Giroux, who is a Canadian public budget officer; we had Bridget Noonan, the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly; David Martine, who at the time was the Secretary of the Department of Treasury and Finance; and Jason Loos, who at the time was a deputy secretary and land coordinator general of the Department of Premier and Cabinet. We made a recommendation for a five-year term, as we should – it gives the continuity and stability for the PBO to undertake their role. We recommended and subsequently appointed Mr Rimmer, who was the acting PBO at the time. What I thought was the best thing about Mr Rimmer and the thing that spoke to me most was his commitment to the role of the Parliamentary Budget Office itself, to public accountability and to public service. I wish Mr Rimmer all the best in his role, and I look forward to working with him over the five-year term, should that exist for me.