Vikki Campion: The Albanese government is on a crazy review spreee

If a minister’s role is to consult, talk to people and fix problems, why does this government continually outsource to reviewers. It reeks of a leadership group afraid to do their job, writes Vikki Campion.

Australia has become a nation where nothing happens except reviews.

Is a project too slow? Review it. Taking too long? Pause until you’ve had the review. Too expensive? Stop until you have had a thorough review and start again when inflation has made it worse.

If more than a handful of people are unhappy, promise them a review. If you arrive in Cabinet and don’t know why you are there, engage a panel or a consultant, preferably both, to write a review to tell you.

Reviews, in most cases, don’t lead to better decisions but to inertia, impeding change and creating sluggish ministers afraid to govern.

One of the most critical reviews for our nation, the Defence Strategic Review released this week, has in its cornerstone more reviews.

If the role of a minister is to govern, consult, talk to people, and fix problems, then why does that role need to be outsourced to reviewers?

The Albanese government is taking its review obsession to extremes – commissioning thousands of pages of motherhood statements from hundreds of reviews, recommended mainly through other reviews, reports and inquiries, creating a circular economy of busywork for their friends at consulting agencies and inside the public service when, if they ventured outside their offices and spoke to people, the solutions to these issues would smack them in the face.

While we all wait for reviews to conclude, regional Australia has suffered from the program and policy paralysis, with no specific regional funding program.

Anthony Albanese’s government has gone on a review spree Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

Here is one classic example: The Productivity Commission reviewed schools nationwide, handing their 350-page report to Labor last December with recommendations for significant reform because 90,000 students a year did not meet minimum standards for reading or numeracy. Federal Education Minister Jason Clare gave that review to state education ministers, who decided to create an “expert panel” to “advise on what these detailed reforms should be.”

This next expert panel won’t deliver its review until October – and it’s only after that education ministers will begin “negotiations regarding policy and funding”.

How many teachers will we lose due to excessive workloads in that time? How many more kids will be left behind before action is taken?

If the country’s entire education ministry, with every teacher and principal, parent and educator at their fingertips, cannot fix policies expeditiously so that our poorest regional children can learn to read, they should step down so we can elect someone who can.

Another classic example of this anaesthetised bureaucracy is how to hand out up to $11.8bn (2021-22) of taxpayer-funded research and development grants, administered in part by the Australian Research Council. An 80-page independent review published this month calls for banning ministers from vetoing ARC recommendations except when it threatens national security.

We only had this review because a Senate inquiry last March, after 85 submissions and a 49-page final report, determined that ministers did need veto powers.

After both reviews and five years since the Greens coughed up the proposal to ban ministerial intervention, Labor still hasn’t moved, announcing a government response “will be in due course”. Since they need help, here you go: Labor senators recommend keeping the right to veto so long as the minister tables the reasons in parliament.

Multiply this inertia over every department, and you see the paralysis created.

Since January, the ministry has tasked the Productivity Commission with another four reviews, including a review on philanthropy to examine “current barriers to philanthropic giving” and to advise on, among other things “the benefits that would flow from increased philanthropic giving”.

Doesn’t that give you confidence? Which of these will assist in the cost of living and soaring power bills?

On top of this we have 109 public inquiries by Joint Select Committees, the Senate and the House, at least partly directed by the ministry – no doubt which will find the need for yet another review.

So far this year, the government has announced independent reviews of modernising business registers, a review of religious exemptions for educational institutions in federal anti-discrimination law, created a new expert issues paper with an expert advisory group to replace the Administrative Appeals Tribunal – a form of review by bevy of political selection, a review into federal secrecy offences, a review of Australia’s human rights framework, a review of the Privacy Act, and a review of modern slavery offences.

The premier impact of many of these reviews will be to sit on a shelf where they collect dust until a staffer decides to recycle them or until they are recycled into another review on the same subject matter.

After Labor thoroughly eviscerated disaster funding in opposition, they now have several reviews on it, including an independent one that’s not due for a report until next April.

Minister Murray Watt, in announcing these reviews not due for another 12 months, said they would help governments respond “quickly and appropriately”.

I don’t know how he defines “quickly”, but we’ll be gearing up for another federal election next April.

By contrast, new NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns arrived with a to-do list and needed no expert panel to tell him to abolish hidden speed cameras, ban phones and bring in breakfast in schools. That’s what an effective opposition leader does. He thinks about what he will do when he is elected to government and then when he gets there, he does them.

And what will be the Albanese government’s greatest achievement? The Voice – an unelected constitutional body based on race.

What will this august and powerful body do in every corner of the government? Consult.

And what gives weight to these consultations? Fat, glossy reviews.

When you don’t have a clue, have another review. Sir Humphrey Appleby could only dream of working for the Albanese government.