Auditor-General concerned about fast-track bill’s lack of transparency, protections for conflicts of interest

The Auditor-General John Ryan is concerned the Government’s fast-track consenting bill, which will give three ministers broad powers to consent certain developments, lacks transparency and effective ways of dealing with real or perceived conflicts of interest.

The bill allows three ministers to consent a range of nationally significant projects, with an expert panel having the ability to impose certain conditions on those consents.

Ryan wrote that the bill needed a stronger mechanism than just the Cabinet Manual for dealing with real or perceived conflicts of interest, given the extent of the power the legislation would grant to ministers.

“Ministers of course have a broad discretion to make decisions, however that power comes, in my view, with an obligation to be transparent to the public about how and why they made those decisions, particularly where those decisions differ from official advice,” Ryan wrote.

“We also know that conflicts of interest, whether real or perceived, can create public concern around the integrity of decision-making,” he said.

Ryan said that while the Cabinet Office Manual set out “expectations and processes for how ministers should manage conflicts of interest”, there was “no legal requirement to comply with it”.

“Given the significance of the decision-making powers in this bill, I encourage the committee to consider additional statutory requirements to strengthen the management of ministerial conflicts of interest,” Ryan wrote.

He pointed to the legislative regimes of the Crown Entities Act 2004 and the Companies Act 1993 as potential models. These set out what types of interest required a disclosure, an individual’s obligation for making a disclosure, who those disclosures should be made to and any consequences for failing to disclose an interest.

There is already concern about how the legislation manages conflicts of interest. A list of parties written to about potentially submitting projects to be fast-tracked includes several entities connected to donors.

Ryan was also concerned about some of the transparency provisions in the legislation.

“The bill includes a requirement to inform applicants of the reasons for declining an application. However, there is no requirement for joint ministers to specify their reasons for approving an application, or for any of the conditions being imposed,” he wrote.

“There is also no requirement for joint ministers to specify their reasons for deviating from a panel’s recommendations, or any directions given for the panel’s reconsideration,” Ryan wrote.

Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.