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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (28 June) . . Page.. 2177 ..
MR BERRY
(continuing):Auditor-General from the duties that he would otherwise perform around the territory so far as the provision of government services and the expenditure of money is concerned.
Quite apart from the effects of the unlawful expenditure, illegal expenditure, whatever you want to call it, and the continuing requirement to deal with that, future generations will have to pay for this extraordinary event in the territory's history. Many future generations will enjoy going to a very nice Bruce Stadium, thank you very much; but if you put the question, "Would you prefer to have a few thousand people off the waiting lists, perhaps a little bit more money for students with disabilities, a better bus service, a bit more work on the environment, and other sports facilities for the not so elite sports in the territory instead of all the millions that have be expended on this?", I reckon the majority of people out there in the community would say that Bruce Stadium could wait for a while. We have got more important things to do with our money.
Notwithstanding the windfall gains that the government has had in revenue terms, this stadium, and the unlawful expenditure on it, will hold the territory back in some respects for many, many years to come. It was money that could have been spent better elsewhere. I bet that if you asked Ms Tucker where she would rather spend it she would think of something pretty smartly to spend the money on, and I reckon there would be just as many other ideas around the place about where the money could have been better spent. But no, we have been subjected to the circus and it has cost us dearly, and this is just another area where there has been a cost. There has been a distraction for the Auditor-General which he could have well done without.
The latest estimate for presentation of that report is about August. We will see what the Auditor-General has to say about this matter, but it is something I wish had never happened. I hope it leaves a scar on those who were responsible for it because it was an appalling and haphazard approach to the management of the territory's funds which we could have well done without.
At 5.00 pm the debate was interrupted in accordance with standing order 34. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.
MR QUINLAN
(5:02): I want to endorse what Mr Berry has said in relation to the auditor's preoccupation with the Bruce Stadium audit. Difficulties seem to have been thrown up all along the way and only history will record at the end of the day just how difficult it was.There was a question raised in the Estimates Committee that I wanted to clarify in case it does confuse people's minds. The auditor works on two fronts. First, he works on the front of performance audits, and that is what he is conducting in relation to Bruce Stadium. He has resources to conduct performance audits, and virtually all of those have been consumed by the Bruce Stadium audit and the difficulties that he faces as he wades through.
Equally, he has separate resources for the compliance audits to ensure that departments have expended their money and complied with the various legislative provisions and guidelines that bind them in their day-to-day operation and in their overall reporting requirements. That area of the Auditor-General's function has not been delayed by the
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