“Creativity is like washing a pig. It’s messy. It has no rules. No clear beginning, middle or end. It’s kind of a pain in the ass, and when you’re done, you’re not sure if the pig is really clean or even why you were washing a pig in the first place.”
– Luke Sullivan
Australia’s shadow economy leeches $12.4bn from tax revenue amid Treasury’s failure to crack down
Auditor general’s report says bid to tackle cash-in-hand work and tax avoidance measures haven’t worked
Treasury castigated for inaction on black economy
Compiled by the Australian National Audit Office, the report found Treasury is still struggling to carry out the work for which it was given extra funding in 2018-19, even after a special taskforce warned the black economy was an “urgent, pervasive and damaging problem”.
The taskforce also recommended an ongoing shadow economy research program. While supported by the government, as of February this year it had yet to be implemented.
Implementation of the Government Response to the Black Economy Taskforce Report
The ATO established the Black Economy Program to support the implementation of its recommendations. Governance and processes supporting the program were largely fit for purpose, although the ATO did not always follow its processes.
The ATO’s program reflected the funding provided through multiple budget measures, however, this did not always directly align with the Taskforce recommendations. The ANAO found that of the six agreed recommendations that the ATO had sole responsibility for implementing, it has: implemented two; largely implemented three; and partly implemented one. (See paragraphs 3.12 to 3.32)
Contribute to an in-progress performance audit: Australian Taxation Office’s
Australian Taxation Office’s management and oversight of fraud control arrangements for the administration of the Goods and Services Tax
The Morrison government’s health funding program went way beyond pork-barrelling
A recent audit shows an Australian public service with deep cultural problems.
Another week, another devastating revelation about the Australian public service.
This week’s bad news comes courtesy of the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO), which has examined how the community health and hospitals program (CHHP), a $2 billion Morrison government health program, was administered.
Spoiler alert: it’s bad! The ANAO says the program “was ineffective and fell short of ethical requirements”. It describes a completely flawed administrative process: $2 billion was spent, much of it in breach of Commonwealth grants guidelines; many grants went to dubious recipients for doubtful outcomes; some spending may even have been unlawful.
Embattled PwC caught up in Russian cyberattack
A dozen illegal workers among more than 100 arrested in 24-hour nationwide immigration crackdown
A reciprocating engine of money, power and influence: how Australia’s ‘media monsters’ used journalism to cement their empires
Carl Sagan said that in order to understand the present, it’s necessary to know the past. Nowhere does this apply with greater force than to the Australian media and its place in the nation’s power structure.
