Two fresh parliamentary inquiries led by Labor will examine Commonwealth government contracting to the Big Four and labour hire practices in the Department of Human Services and service delivery at Centrelink and on visas.
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Motions to establish the new probes passed the Upper House with crossbench support on Thursday, each with a wide scope to examine government practices and its effects on services and the public servants who deliver them.
It follows repeated controversies over contracting practices by government agencies with EY, KPMG, Deloitte and PwC, as well as growing concerns about labour hire outsourcing as the government signs $1 billion in contracts for DHS call centre operators and compliance staff.
In the past year, revelations about government contracting practices in the media have included that spending on Big Four contracting more than doubled in the five years to 2018 and rises also coincided with increasing political donations by the firms.
One inquiry, established by a motion from Labor frontbencher Senator Kristina Keneally, will look at service delivery across the visa and citizenship system and Centrelink's controversial robo-debt automated debt collection system.
That inquiry, by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee will report its findings in mid-September this year.
The second inquiry, led by another Labor motion from Senator Deb O'Neill, will examine contracting practices with the Big Four and the integrity of government systems overseeing such contracting practices.
It will also investigate potential conflicts of interest across the industry and government and examine whether regulators are doing enough to regulate their auditing practices, to report by March next year.
