Page 2692 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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For Mr Berry to rage on about patronage is absolute rubbish. Nobody is asking the Government to exercise patronage. I would refer back to the Chief Minister's own comments, referred to here in the Auditor-General's letter of 28 June. He reminds the Chief Minister of her statement as to sacking of agency heads. I quote:
In principle I believe that those positions should be advertised and there should be a competitive process for them -
fine -
but with eight or nine months to go in government, that's clearly not on. The people there, I believe, have the right to continue there for the life of this Government.
What has changed, and why have you singled out the Auditor-General for this special treatment? There are other agency heads whose tenure is the same as that of the Auditor-General. Let us be clear; why has the Government singled out the Auditor-General? The Chief Minister has not explained that. She has not explained why she has singled out the Auditor-General for special treatment.
The fact is that the Auditor-General is the one statutory officer who should not be singled out for this special treatment. He is the only one of those agency heads who is responsible, by virtue of his position, to this Assembly, not to the Government. The Chief Minister can do what she likes about the rest of her agency heads. They respond to her. They are SES officers, part of the public service, part of the Government Service and responsible to the Government. But the Auditor-General is not in that general category. Yet he has been singled out for special treatment. None of the Government - Mr Connolly in his rage; the Chief Minister; Mr Berry, in his defence of his position - have attempted to explain why the Auditor-General has been specially singled out for treatment.
Mr Connolly: Tell us who is in the same position. Who else's appointment expired on 30 June?
MR KAINE: All you had to do was reappoint him. In the Chief Minister's own words, "During the life of the Government these people should continue in their jobs". They are not my words; they are not Mr Connolly's words; regrettably, they are the words of the Chief Minister. Yet here we have the position where the Auditor-General has an appointment on a day-to-day basis at the whim of the Government. It is not good enough.
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