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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (23 May) . . Page.. 1742 ..

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (6.21): Mr Speaker, the proposed clause is superfluous, as it would duplicate the role of the Auditor-General. I do not think the Auditor-General would be really pleased about having his role duplicated. Clause 10 of the Auditor-General Bill 1996 gives the Auditor-General responsibility for the widest possible range of matters relating to financial management, including promoting public accountability. The effectiveness of the operation of the Financial Management Act is, Mr Speaker, one of the most significant matters, if not the most significant matter, that the Auditor-General can be expected to report on.

The Auditor-General has requested, and the Government has agreed, the terms of clause 10 in the Auditor-General Bill. In fact, Mr Speaker, it was subject to quite a lot of negotiation with the Auditor-General. It enables the Auditor-General to use the expertise and knowledge available to his or her office on activities that may not be directly auditing but may benefit accountability and/or management of the ACT public sector. Mr Speaker, I think it is extremely important that any review process that goes on in regard to this particular Bill is done by the Auditor-General, who is independent of the Government - at arm's length from the Government - and certainly has the expertise to review this sort of legislation.

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (6.23): Mr Speaker, we believe that review of this legislation is going to be important to the effective implementation of it and to the ongoing success of these measures. We certainly believe that "the effectiveness of this Act in facilitating the provision of outputs" and "the impact of this Act on the quality of outputs" are both important issues. They are issues which I hope that not just the Auditor-General but also the Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee might take an interest in. Similarly, I assume that the Government might take an interest in the adverse impact of the Act on the achievement of the objectives of the Government. As we have discussed earlier, although nothing formal has yet occurred, I understand that the Planning and Environment Committee is proposing to look at the possibility of incorporating environmental accounts into financial management frameworks. So a lot of the propositions that are talked about here are going to be taken up in a range of forums, and I think that is appropriate.

I think it is also appropriate that the Treasurer, through her department, maintain an ongoing role in looking at it, and perhaps even conduct a formal review after a year or two and report back to the Assembly. I think that would be a very desirable thing. I am not sure whether the terms of reference as set out here are the correct way to go, and I am not sure that incorporating such a review in a statutory form into this Act is the correct way to go.

I go back to the point I made a moment or so ago, Mr Speaker. The parliament is always the master of the Executive. If the parliament wants the Executive to report on the implementation of the Financial Management Act and the Executive fails to do it, that is a matter that the parliament can take up with the Executive at that time. I do not know that mandating an inquiry by the Executive is a particularly effective way of going about the business of ensuring that the parliament has the information it needs about the effective operation of the Act. The parliament does have forums through the Public Accounts Committee to do that, and I think that is the preferable way for the parliament to keep an eye on whether it is happy with its legislation.

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