From here
:
Federal Finance Minister Nick Minchin has played down the fact the Prime Minister's $10 billion water plan did not go to Cabinet before it was announced. A Senate estimates committee has heard the plan to take over the Murray-Darling Basin was being worked on from early November last year. The Opposition says it is unprecedented that such a major project would not be approved by Cabinet.
That is borderline emergency governance. Fortunately it has to go through the relatively legislatively independent Senate. The committee system is also proving its worth as a check and balance on the Executive. It should not be forgotten that Nick Minchin is a Senator too. Senate committees are worth their weight in gold.
That the water plan didn't go through cabinet, and wasn't approved by the cabinet, is a Presidential system. If we are going to have an Australian president, then the least we should ensure is that all the checks and balances, as well as separation of powers between branches exist in constitutional explicitness. A republic demands no less.
Convention is becoming to mean that the Prime Minister is a presidential position, we need to catch up with the constitutional technologies of 2006, if not 17876, so we can guarantee that the current and future Australian Presidents don't abuse their position under the weaknesses of a parliamentary system and our dated constitution.
Update
Andrew Bartlett has more
:
Those of us who suspected the federal government’s grand Murray-Darling basin rescue plan was policy on the run had our suspicions confirmed in Senate Estimates hearings last night, when the government’s Senate Leader, Nick Minchin, confirmed that the $10 billion package did not go to Cabinet for approval before it was announced. Further evidence provided this morning indicates that the Department of Finance was informed about the expenditure package just two days before it was announced, and they will cost the plan once the states agree to it.
