It's been a boomer of a year for the inquiry industry

By Rob Hosking

By one estimate this government has launched 26 inquiries, 126 reviews, 58 investigations and 13 explorations.

Overall the exact costs of all the inquiries and reviews is unknown. The National Opposition has costed them at $30 million, and although this appears a little on the high side, the government has been unable to come up with its own estimate.

• Policy development in key areas such as monetary policy, tax, telecommunications and electricity has been outsourced. The most important of these, the first two, are scheduled to report back by the end of next year. As none of these exercises ever comes in on time, this means there will probably be some spill-over into 2002 - election year.
• The flagship area of the arts was left to a team of experts, which produced the ill-fated Heart of the Nation report, which cost the taxpayer $225,000 and which Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Judith Tizard attempted to suppress. The eventually released report was a fairly thick tome of feel-good platitudes and was to have been rewritten. Nothing has been heard of it since.
• One inquiry receiving considerable international attention is the Royal Commission on Genetic Engineering. This $5 million exercise will report next year and is attracting a massive array of expertise, both pro and anti GE.

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