Fed: Keep bureaucrats away from policy proposals: Joyce

AAP General News (Australia)
04-05-2007
Fed: Keep bureaucrats away from policy proposals: Joyce

CANBERRA, April 5 AAP - Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce says the federal government
should overlook Treasury's advice more often when making policy decisions.

His comments come after Treasury secretary Ken Henry, Australia's most senior economic
bureaucrat, told an internal forum in March that his department had had little influence
on the $10 billion rescue package for the Murray-Darling basin.

In the speech, Dr Henry lamented that the government had not followed his department's
advice on water and climate change policy.

Senator Joyce said today Treasury was not the arbiter of good public policy, and in
the past had advised against worthy proposals.

"I think there's probably lots of plans that would be much better if they didn't go
past Treasury," he told ABC radio.

"Obviously at the end of the day, we've got to go to the election, not Ken Henry.

"There are a lot of things that I feel would probably be of great benefit to the nation
- going right back to the time where Treasury knocked out the railway line between the
coal mines of north Queensland and the iron ore mines of Western Australia.

"That would have been a great benefit had the Treasury agreed to that."

Senator Joyce said Prime Minister John Howard and Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull
had made the necessary tough decisions on reforming water arrangements in the Murray-Darling
basin.

"At the end of the day it's not Mr Henry that has to go before the Australian people," he said.

"There are times where, to get something done, you have to make a decision and I think
that the prime minister and Mr Turnbull did that."

AAP dcr/mss/mn

KEYWORD: WATER JOYCE

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