A cross-party parliamentary committee says the government has not allowed enough scrutiny of $1.5 billion in COVID-19 pandemic spending and some health measures.
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The Senate's scrutiny of delegated legislation committee said in its latest report the method used by the government to spend an extra $986 million on pandemic leave disaster payments and $621 million for new quarantine facilities needed greater accountability.
The committee said the legal instruments used to secure the funding effectively did so "without the opportunity for appropriate parliamentary oversight through the disallowance process".
"The committee considers that our system of representative democracy ... requires elected representatives to have an opportunity to scrutinise and, if necessary, repeal executive-made law," the report said.
Disallowable instruments must be tabled in parliament and are open to veto or disallowance for a set period of time.
The government has been reluctant to use such instruments in recent times, mainly arguing it has had to act without delay to roll out funding to deal with the pandemic.
As well, seven legal instruments made under the Biosecurity Act were also singled out by the committee as needing better scrutiny.
They included temporarily imposing tough travel restrictions in and out of certain remote communities in the Northern Territory, effectively locking them down.
The government argued giving the Senate the power to disallow the decisions would make it harder for the Commonwealth to take urgent action to manage public health risks.
"The committee appreciates that during an emergency it is necessary for governments to take urgent and decisive action. However, parliament must also have effective oversight of these critical decisions and retain the ability to scrutinise the actions of governments," the report said.
If the government did not amend biosecurity laws to allow greater scrutiny, the committee said it would move its own amendments.
Question marks were also raised over a number of grants and programs funded in October and November 2021, which the committee said needed detailed scrutiny by the Senate's education, economics, finance, environment, rural and community affairs committees.
The grants and programs ranged from $1.8 million for a sports anti-doping program to $512 million for job seeker training.
Australian Associated Press
