It's a common tactic of incoming governments facing big budget shortfalls to call for an independent inquiry to investigate the horrors bequeathed by their vanquished foes, and it happens no matter what stripe your political colours.

Tony Abbott federally and Campbell Newman in Queensland were big fans of “commissions of audit”, arranging them as soon as they took government in the high hopes that the blame for all nasty manner of remedial action could be sheeted back to their predecessors.