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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (23 May) . . Page.. 1745 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

"(5) The Auditor-General shall take account of the assessment under subsection (2) when preparing a report for the Legislative Assembly about the audit.".

Mr Speaker, the role of the Auditor-General is very important in terms of ensuring the transparency and accountability of government. The Greens are supportive of the Government's moves to strengthen the role and independence of the Auditor-General, and in moving this amendment the Greens are seeking to further strengthen and expand the role of the Auditor-General by enabling the Auditor-General to consider both social and environmental benefits and costs in the conduct of performance audits where appropriate. It is giving the Auditor-General the power to report back on the impediments to the implementation of environmental programs in government agencies, for example. It might be because the initial capital costs are the impediment, in which case the Auditor-General may recommend that an agency should be able to borrow against future savings on environmental grounds. It is also saying that efficiency is more than cost per unit, and expenditure may be justified on social or environmental grounds even when it does not necessarily increase the economic efficiency of an operation when narrowly defined.

In the relatively short time the Greens have been in the Assembly we have witnessed other members express concern that a narrow focus on efficiency in audits can produce recommendations which do not coincide with the broader objectives of government. Once again, it is about looking at things in a holistic way. The best environmental or social policies in the world will not be accepted if the economic audit says that they are bad for efficiency. The Auditor-General's report on secondary colleges is a good case in point. It was heavily criticised because it did not consider the ACT's high retention rates. We would say that this is a social benefit that should be considered. You could probably, if you really wanted to, measure some of the actual savings to governments that flow from having high retention rates, but not if we focus on a very narrow view of economics.

Mr Speaker, one of the greatest impediments to the implementation of the ESD process has been the unwillingness of governments to implement policies and institutional changes which put the theory of sustainable development - that is, integrating economic, social and environmental concerns - into practice. The Government will probably argue that the Commissioner for the Environment does this. I would argue that the State of the Environment Report is not a comprehensive look at all departmental activities; it is an overview of the state of the environment in the ACT. In any case, it should not be the role of just the Commissioner for the Environment to consider the environmental costs and benefits of government activities. We need to incorporate environmental knowledge into our day-to-day decision-making, and an important part of this is developing transparent processes to examine environmental costs or benefits of government activity across all levels of government. It is becoming increasingly recognised that there are very real social and environmental costs and benefits associated with all the policies and activities of government, both direct and indirect; but traditional approaches to economics are often criticised for having too narrow a view of the world and economic activity.

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