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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 5108 ..
The PAC's report examines the Auditor-General's report No. 8 of 1995 on financial audits for the year ending 30 June 1995.
The Government has given careful consideration to the recommendations of both the Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee. The Committee requested that the Government respond to the Assembly on a number of issues, which I shall now address briefly in turn.
"What action is proposed on the audit recommendation that there be a legislative requirement that the main budget paper information anticipated to be used for accountability purposes should be independently audited"
Mr Speaker, the Financial Management Act 1996 requires that the Territory and departmental budgets include among other things an estimated operating statement, a statement of assets and liabilities, and a statement of estimated cash flows.
The annual statements of these reporting entities are required to be prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting practice. The annual statements of departments are also to be prepared in a form that facilitates a comparison between the financial operations during the year and the estimates of those operations contained in the budget.
It is premature to be considering the statutory independent audit of the budget statements as it is not certain on what basis such an audit would be conducted. To date, accounting and auditing standards have not been developed to verify budgeted data.
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