The Treasury has supplied B&E with audio of a recent economics committee hearing to outline what happened after the spirited debate at the Melbourne Institute Intergen +10 conference.

The Commonwealth Treasury began operations in Melbourne in January 1901. The original five members of the department were bookkeepers.

Regular readers of B&E will have read the article about the debate between Professor Pagan and Dr David Gruen of the Treasury at the Intergen conference in early May. Professor Pagan accused the Treasury of allowing its budget forecasts in 2009 to be manipulated for political purposes, likening them to Greece’s public accounts and claiming that the recent budget may be subject to the same problems. It provoked a spirited defence from Dr Gruen, the head of the Macro Economic unit at the Treasury, and the media subsequently reported on this debate.

Not long after the conference the estimates hearing of the Senate Economics Legislation Committee was held. The Treasury kindly supplied the audio which illustrates what occurred after the conference, events that received no media coverage. Speaking first is committee member Senator Barnaby Joyce followed by Dr Gruen.