Department of the Treasury (Australia)

Department of the Treasury

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The main office of the Department of the Treasury, located in Parkes, ACT.
Agency overview
Formed	1901
Jurisdiction	Australia
Headquarters	Parkes, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
Employees	1,056 (at April 2013)
Ministers responsible	Scott Morrison MP, Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer, Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer, Minister for Small Business
Agency executive	John Fraser, Secretary to the Treasury
Parent agency	Australian Government
Child agencies	Reserve Bank of Australia Australian Bureau of Statistics Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Australian Securities and Investments Commission Australian Taxation Office Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee Inspector-General of Taxation National Competition Council Auditing and Assurance Standards Board Australian Accounting Standards Board Productivity Commission Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation
Website	Department of the Treasury Website

The Department of the Treasury is an Australian Government department, formed at Federation. Its role is to develop economic policy and prepare the Australian federal budget.

The head of the department is the Secretary to the Treasury, presently John Fraser, who reports the Treasurer of Australia, presently the Hon. Scott Morrison MP and the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Small Business, presently the Hon. Kelly O'Dwyer MP .

History

The Commonwealth Treasury was established in Melbourne in January 1902. The department is focused on developing Australian taxation system, land and income tax and economic policies.

Structure

The department is divided into four groups, Fiscal, Macroeconomic, Revenue and Markets with support coming from the Corporate Services Division. These groups were established to meet four policy outcomes:

Effective government spending and taxation arrangements

The Treasury provides advice on budget policy issues, trends in Commonwealth revenue and major fiscal and financial aggregates, major expenditure programmes, taxation policy, retirement income, Commonwealth-State financial policy and actuarial services.

Sound macroeconomic environment

The Treasury monitors and assesses economic conditions and prospects, both in Australia and overseas, and provides advice on the formulation and implementation of effective macroeconomic policy.

Well functioning markets

The Treasury provides advice on policy processes and reforms that promote a secure financial system and sound corporate practices, remove impediments to competition in product and services markets and safeguard the public interest in matters such as consumer protection and foreign investment.

Effective Taxation and retirement income arrangements

The Treasury provides advice and assists in the formulation and implementation of government taxation and retirement income policies and legislation as well as providing information on material changes to taxation revenue forecasts and projections.

Financial regulation

The department works with the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Reserve Bank of Australia via the Council of Financial Regulators Working Group to ensure that market operators have appropriate oversight and to facilitate crisis management if required.

Secretaries to the Treasury

The Secretary to the Treasury is the public service head of the department. Below is the list of Secretaries.

Order	Name	Term begin	Term end	Time in office	Notes
1	George Allen	1 January 1901	13 March 1916		appointed retrospectively on 9 July 1901
2	James Collins	14 March 1916	26 June 1926
3	James Heathershaw	3 August 1926	28 April 1932
4	Sir Henry (Harry) Sheehan	29 April 1932	28 February 1938
5	Stuart McFarlane	24 March 1938	29 January 1948
6	George Watt	23 November 1948	31 March 1951
7	Sir Roland Wilson	1 April 1951	27 October 1966
8	Sir Richard Randall	28 October 1966	31 October 1971
9	Sir Frederick Wheeler	1 November 1971	5 January 1979
10	John Stone	8 January 1979	14 September 1984
11	Bernie Fraser	19 September 1984	18 September 1989
12	Chris Higgins	19 September 1989	6 December 1990
13	Tony Cole	14 February 1991	23 March 1993
14	Ted Evans	24 May 1993	26 April 2001
15	Ken Henry	27 April 2001	4 March 2011
16	Martin Parkinson	7 March 2011	12 December 2014
17	John Fraser	15 January 2015	present

Treasury’s independence

In 2008, Treasurer Wayne Swan called Secretary to the Treasury Ken Henry an "independent economic regulator," similar to the Governor of the Reserve Bank. When asked after the 2009 Budget about Treasury’s independence, Henry replied:

Strictly of course we're not. The Treasury Department is a department of state. It is part of the executive government. It works to the government of the day, whatever the political persuasion of the government of the day. And so in that sense of course the Treasury is not independent from government and it can never behave as if it is independent from government. But there's another sense in which it does have a degree of independence and that is that the Treasury conducts its analysis without government interference. It's up to the government of the day to decide whether to accept that analysis or whether to reject that analysis.

— ABC Radio, Tuesday, 19 May 2009

Forecasts

The department is legally required to provide a Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook containing updated reports on the economic and fiscal outlook shortly after the issuing of a writ for a general federal election.

See also

• Henry Tax Review
• List of Australian Commonwealth Government entities

External links

• Official website
• Reserve Bank Board Members