Research and referencing assignmentARTS1840 – Semester 1, 2010z3332769Critical analysisThe Australian Journal of Public Administration research and evaluation paper explores parliamentary scrutiny of government performance in Australia. It looks at the processes the Australian Commonwealth Parliament can use to hold ministers and public officials accountable for the performance of their relevant departments. These decisions are made based on the performance data that each department is required to provide and on investigations by parliamentary committees. Thomas' article highlights that the publication of performance data does not constitute accountability, rather, there must be consequences following the examination of this data. To evaluate the performance of Parliament in its ability to monitor various government departments, the article draws attention to the two houses of Parliament. The House of Representatives is generally under close government control while the Senate is very rarely controlled by the government in power, giving it greater ability to scrutinize government performance. (Thomas 2009: 373) The article states that there are two main documents used to represent performance to parliament. These are the required annual reports and appraisal reports of various departments. Annual reports must be submitted to Parliament by 31 October each year (Thomas 2009: 374). Initially, these documents focused on the financial aspect of the department in question, but they began to cover other areas relevant to performance. The argument presented by Thomas generally praises the Commonwealth Government's reforms on introducing mechanisms to hold the public service accountable (Thomas 200...... half of paper......ty during the Howard years: 1996-2007', Australian Journal of Politics and History, 54 (2): 225-247. Raffin, L (2008). “Accountability or inability: to what extent does the House of Representatives question time offer executive accountability compared to other parliamentary chambers? Is there a need for reform? ?', Australasian Parliamentary Review, 23(2): 66-85.Singleton, G (2008) 'Is the Senate a paper tiger?', in Aulich, C and Wettenhall, R (eds), Howard's Fourth Government : Australian Commonwealth Administration 2004-2007. Sydney: UNSW Press, pp. 75-94.Thomas, P (2009) 'Parliamentary scrutiny of government performance in Australia', The Australian Journal of Public Administration, 68(4): 373 -398.Vander Wyk, J and Lilley, A (2005). “Referral of bills to Australian Senate committees”, http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/pubs/pops/pop43/pop43. pdf, last accessed March 26 2010.