Page 2744 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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request of parliament. Auditors-General and their officers have extensive powers to scrutinise, criticise, make suggestions and draw attention to breaches of law or regulations, but they cannot compel departments to comply with their findings. They report to parliament, which takes what action it considers necessary.
In the letter to our Auditor-General, Mr O'Neill, from the Federal Auditor-General, Mr Taylor, dated 29 July, a couple of points are made which need to be noted. Mr Taylor says to his colleague Mr O'Neill, in paragraph 1:
An indeterminate term of appointment whereby the occupant of the position of Auditor-General is literally at the pleasure of the Executive cuts right across the principle of independence which is an essential basis for the external audit of government enterprises.
Mr Taylor goes on to say, in paragraph 3:
It is clear that there is a misconception about the nature of the office of Auditor-General. The appointment of an Auditor-General is not the same as the appointment of an agency head. An agency head reports privately to a Minister. His or her first loyalty (within the bounds of the law and good administration) is to that Minister. The Auditor-General has a duty to the Assembly and to the public as a whole to report on audits which incidentally might embarrass the Public Service and therefore Ministers. This underlines the need for great care and sensitivity to be taken in such an appointment if public confidence in government is not to be harmed.
How, then, could this be achieved under the Act which governs the appointment of an Auditor-General, particularly when it was clear that the Auditor had written to the Chief Minister on 7 June advising that his term expired on 30 June 1991 and that the previous Chief Minister had proposed to appoint the Auditor-General until July 1992, when Mr O'Neill indicated he would be seeking to retire? As we can now see, there was a period, from 1 July to 23 July, when there was no authority for Mr O'Neill to act as Auditor-General. It would seem that during that period, in fact, the ACT did not have an Auditor-General.
If we turn to the ACT Audit Act of 1989, under which the Auditor-General can be appointed, we see that section 14 does provide for the appointment of an Acting Auditor-General for a period of no more than 12 months. It was this section that was used by Mr Kaine to appoint Mr O'Neill to the position.
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