Although she remained Minister for Environment and Conservation, Garbutt lost responsibility for Land Victoria in the reshuffled Bracks Cabinet following the 2002 elections.
Throughout these, both Minister Garbutt and Secretary Munro continued to give strong support to O’Keeffe, despite the frequent concerns raised by the State opposition and the media.
As Minister for Environment and Conservation, Garbutt was subject to scrutiny by the Parliament's Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) inquiry into the 2002–03 budget estimates of 25 June 2002 concerning her failure to table the 1999–2000 and 2000–01 Reports of the Surveyor-General of Victoria, Keith Clifford Bell, as required under the Survey Coordination Act (1958).
The Auditor-General advised that the Surveyor-General's responsibilities could not be transferred without legislative mandate, consistent with the opinion of the Victorian Government Solicitor.
The Auditor-General found that the transfer of the functions of the Surveyor-General had seen them delivered unsatisfactorily by the Land Information Group, and failing to meet the legislative obligations.
[19] The Opposition directed all blame for concerns to Minister Garbutt, and emphasized the extreme political interference in the performance of the statutory functions of the Surveyor-General by Garbutt, DNRE Secretary Munro and Land Victoria senior management under Executive Director O'Keeffe.
[20] Such interference included: attempts to block or alter annual reports from the Surveyor-General; threats and intimidation especially by O'Keeffe; hiring of private investigators to investigate the Surveyor-General and his office; and efforts to interfere with his review of State electoral boundaries in his capacity as an Electoral Boundaries Commissioner.
[18] Further concerns about Garbutt were raised in the Parliament on 17 April 2002 and again on 17 October 2002 by Opposition environment spokesman Victor Perton regarding the attempted misuse of millions of dollars from the Estate Agents Guarantee Fund (EAGF) by Land Victoria and the Department of Justice (DoJ).
Specifically, Perton reported that Land Victoria and the Department of Justice had "conspired to invent a 'survey reform' project to win $7.5 million from the fund".
Perton, in April 2002 in Parliament and earlier in the media, quoted "from documents from 2001 in which the assistant director of land records and information services, Ivan Powell, talks of having 'invented some benefits' in regards to the project and of a request to 'invent another layer of detail'".
It was also reported that O’Keeffe had approved an illegal $100,000 contract for a consultant to "lobby her own Minister" Garbutt to discredit the Surveyor-General.
[24] In 2001, Garbutt, as Minister of Environment authorized the killing of flying-foxes in the Royal Botanical Gardens by the company, Wildpro.
In authorizing this, Garbutt rejected her scientific ministerial committee’s advice that the species was endangered, agreeing instead with the Gardens' management.
Subsequently, the species was declared endangered in New South Wales, and the federal Environment Minister Robert Hill intervened to prevent further killings.
The Age reported Garbutt’s poor decision making as “the Great Bat Bungle” where she ignored expert scientific advice.
[25][26] When in the role of Community Services Minister, Garbutt was heavily criticised by the Opposition for the Government's handling of new child-protection legislation in 2004.