Last week the Senate called for Industry Minister Christian Porter to produce a report on Industry Growth Centres, long completed by consultants

The Senate wanted it Monday but this morning is still wanting, with the government not delivering.

Friends of the programme say this is because the report demonstrates the growth centres are doing a terrific job, and would do it even better with more money, which the government is not inclined to provide. “The industry growth centres are working; they just need better resourcing. The government should be celebrating this, but, instead, they’re again hiding behind the secretive veil of cabinet, seemingly immune to accountability and free to pick and choose their own winners and losers,” Labor’s Senator Murray Watt (Queensland) said in the Senate, Monday night.

Unaligned observers wonder whether a 2019 Nous Group review might apply, it found the “work is required to develop consistent and appropriate approaches …” (CMM July 31 2019).

Or it might be because the report is still being considered and Mr Porter’s office likes to decide when it will share. The announcement of the last round of Cooperative Research Centres is said to have been micro-managed by his office.