What’s the point of advisory bodies if they’re ignored?

By Stephen Bartos

April 11, 2022

Members-Hall-parliament-house-canberra (1)
It’s time to look towards the next tranche of gender equality innovations and reforms. (Adobe)

Should a government maintain an advisory body if it does not want to take advice from it? The question is more pertinent after the commonwealth pre-election budget conspicuously failed to take into account expert advice in some areas. 

The budget announced billions of dollars for infrastructure projects. There were announcements for every state and territory: around — or by some counts more than — a hundred new projects. 

Trouble is, according to media analysis, only some 15% of those were endorsed as priorities by Infrastructure Australia (IA), the government’s advisory body on infrastructure.

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