“The
role of the Cabinet Standing Committee on Expenditure (Expenditure
Review Committee or ERC) is to assist Cabinet and the Treasurer in:
framing
the fiscal strategy and the Budget for Cabinet's consideration
driving
expenditure controls within agencies and monitoring financial
performance
considering
proposals with financial implications brought forward by Ministers.
ERC
is the only committee of Cabinet that can recommend any new spending
or revenue proposals to Cabinet.
All
spending, revenue or tax expenditure proposals by Ministers must be
considered by ERC prior to final Cabinet approval unless otherwise
agreed by the Premier, Deputy Premier and Treasurer…..
The
Treasurer is the Chair of the ERC. The Treasurer determines the order
of proceedings, and summarises the decisions made for recording by
the note takers. The Secretary, Department of Premier
and Cabinet, is the Secretary to the Committee. The Department of
Premier and Cabinet and Treasury will provide note takers for
meetings." [https://arp.nsw.gov.au/c2014-04-cabinet-standing-committee-expenditure-review-procedures-and-operational-rules-2014/] [my
yellow highlighting]
From
02 Apr 2015 to 23 Jan 2017 Liberal MP for Willoughby Gladys
Berejiklian as NSW Treasurer was chair of the Estimates Review Committee of Cabinet (ERC) and from 23 Jan 2017
to 05 Oct 2021 she was Premier of New South
Wales.
Ongoing
evidence at Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) 2021
Operation Keppel public hearings to date
confirms that the Estimates Review Committee revealed on 4
December 2016 that it had approved $5.5 million expenditure in
2016/2017 to the Office of Sports with funding sourced from the
Retart NSW Fund program, Regional Growth – Environment and Tourism
Fund.
The
Restart NSW Fund - itself financed by way of the sale of government infrastructure or privatisation of its assets - being the responsibility of the NSW Treasurer.
At
that point NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian had been chair of the ERC
for approximately 20 months and based on previous evidence given by
the then Liberal MLA for Wagga Wagga had been in a close personal
friendship with him which began sometime between 2013-2015.
However,
the bureaucratic path taken in assessment of the Australian Clay
Target Association’s expanded proposal for an upgrade in sporting
facilities as well as a new club & conference centre appears
rather circuitous.
Apparently
continuing a level of public service confusion which had marked the
progression of this on-off funding request since 2012.
Indeed,
by 2 January 2017 the then MLA for Wagga Wagga sent out a media
release announcing the gun club funding grant before the bureaucrats
had signed off on the still problematic business case.
When
by midmorning of 23 January 2017 Ms. Berejiklian swopped horses,
becoming NSW Premier on the retirement of Liberal MLA for Manly, Mike
Baird, the Liberal Member for Epping Dominic Perrottet became
NSW Treasurer and therefore the new chair of the Expenditure
Review Committee (ERC).
The
ACTA unresolved and unsatisfactory business case was still stumbling
along on 2 April 2017 when it appears that no matter how one looked
at the cost-benefit analysis of the proposal, any projected economic
benefit being returned to that regional city, the Liberal-held
electorate or the state as a whole, was likely to be less than the $5.5 million
cost of upgrading & expanding that Wagga Wagga gun club.
By that April it had been about 4 years and 4 months since the then Liberal
Member for Wagga Wagga had first written to then NSW Premier and
Liberal Member for Ku-ring-gai, Barry O’Farrell, raising the
subject of funding the gun club upgrade of it sporting facilities.
An
ordinary person might be forgiven for thinking that by this time ACTA
would have been losing support in Macquarie Street for the
Olympic-level gun club and associated facilities it planned for Wagga
Wagga.
However,
evidence given at Operation Keppel public hearings suggest that staff
members of Deputy-Premier and Liberal MLA for Monaro, John Barilario,
were letting it be known that he supported the ACTA gun club
proposal. Barilaro was also a member of the Executive Review
Committee of Cabinet when first Berejiklian and then Perrottet
chaired this committee as NSW Treasurer.
Mr.
Barilaro’s staff allegedly telling at least one public servant assessing/ progressing the $5.5 million grant proposal that the gun
club project was of special interest to Premier Berejiklian.
In
June 2017 Regional NSW, Department of Premier and Cabinet appears to
have sent the grant proposal to the Department’s Investment
Appraisal Unit allegedly following a request by the Premier – there
being a belief that the Premier’s Office & the Premier wanted
the ACTA business case for a large clubhouse, conference facility and
associated infrastructure revisited.
Across three successive NSW Coalition Governments it seem premiers and cabinet ministers have been prepared to spend an inordinate amount of public service time and money on progressing the desires of then Liberal MLA for Wagga Wagga.
To be continued......