Every year, the Victorian parliament partakes of a tradition that has come to be known as “dump day” – when the government releases a flood of annual reports all at once, making it nearly impossible for journalists and other interested parties to properly scrutinise them.
The opposition will, on cue, rail against the practice, ignoring the fact that dump day also existed when they were in power.
But amendments put forward by the Greens, which passed Victorian parliament’s upper house on Tuesday, could finally bring an end to the practice. Here’s what we know.
What happens on dump day?
Picture this. You’re a journalist, political staffer or member of an advocacy group going about a busy sitting day in parliament when you receive a notification: “Documents have been tabled and can be accessed here.” You click the link and find hundreds of annual reports, some hundreds pages long. There’s rarely any notice they’re coming.
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In 2022, the parliament’s website temporarily crashed after the government tabled 265 reports just five days before Christmas, as attention was on the official opening of the 60th parliament after the state election.
In 2023, there were more than 240 documents released at once, while last year there were 170, with more than 100 delayed to later sitting dates after several agencies failed to table them in time.
Dump day is possible thanks to the Financial Management Act, a law which gives government entities until 31 October to table their annual reports. These reports are typically finalised around the end of the financial year but instead of being tabled as they’re ready, they’re often released in one, massive batch.
The auditor general, Andrew Greaves, used his 2023 annual report – tabled on dump day – to urge the government to rethink the schedule.
“The time lag in tabling impedes accountability and transparency of entity performance because tabling a high volume of annual reports at the same time creates a significant information burden on parliamentarians and the Victorian community,” Greaves wrote at the time.
The Greens leader, Ellen Sandell, says she knew dump day was a “running joke” in parliament but seeing it in action was no laughing matter.
“When I first saw the piles of hundreds of annual reports released at once so no one could actually read what was in them, it was actually quite staggering,” Sandell says.
“It’s terrible for democracy and transparency and being able to scrutinise the government properly, and that’s by design.”
What is contained in the reports?
All government departments and agencies must compile an annual report. This includes the state’s emergency services, hospitals, courts, environment agencies, cultural institutions, major transport projects, integrity bodies and even cemeteries.
They’re not “just dry admin”, Sandell says, “they include things like police misconduct data, health service failures and public money blowouts.”
Some reports make for particularly grim reading. The Commission for Children and Young People annual report details the number of allegations of child abuse and misconduct it receives, as well its investigations into children’s deaths.
Others outline the state of public housing, animal deaths at the state’s zoos, length of the elective surgery waitlist, ambulance response times and how often they are ramped at hospitals.
Catherine Williams from the Centre for Public Integrity says the reports contain a “wealth of information essential for both parliamentary and public scrutiny” of government performance.
“But the dump day tradition undermines that scrutiny,” Williams says.
“When hundreds of reports are released at once, it’s simply not possible to quickly get across what’s in them quickly and important issues can be missed entirely.”
What are the Greens proposing?
The government has put forward some amendments to the Financial Management Act in parliament, which are unrelated to dump day, but the Greens proposed some changes to the practice in exchange for their support to pass the bill.
Their amendments force annual reports to be submitted between 15 and 31 October and then published within four sitting days of a minister receiving them or 14 days if parliament isn’t sitting.
Ministers wouldn’t be able to dictate submission dates and would have to state when they received each report when it is tabled.
The aim of the amendment is to have reports tabled more quickly and in smaller, more manageable batches.
“It will significantly increase the likelihood that people can make use of the information when it’s provided. The way it’s done now really prevents that,” Williams says.
So, will dump day actually be dumped?
Yes, the government and opposition backed the amendments during debate in the upper house on Tuesday.
The Coalition leader in the upper house, David Davis, said there should not be “significant lags” between annual reports being submitted and tabled.
“As reports largely come through they should be tabled in a timely way – not dumped en masse,” he said.
The treasurer and leader of the government in the upper house, Jaclyn Symes, thanked the Greens for working with the government. She said she was “very comfortable” with the amendment.
“No one wants to sit on reports, you want to get them tabled,” she said.
The bill now has to return to the lower house for another vote. Even if it passes, as is expected, some agencies are already missing the existing legislated deadline. It remains to be seen whether they will be able to meet an earlier one.
