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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (29 November) . . Page.. 3354 ..
MR OSBORNE (continuing):
Mr Speaker, the Auditor-General has a very important role in the life of a parliament. At the top of the list of functions and responsibilities already included in our Auditor-General Act is an obligation to promote public accountability in the public administration of the territory.
I think that we have all learned a great deal about accountability over the past two years and become quite familiar with the Auditor-General Act itself. Accountability is a part of everyday life for every member of parliament and for the government of the day. However, there are degrees of accountability for each of us.
Members of a parliament are at various times held accountable by the ballot box, through interaction with the media and by members of the public as they go about their duties. The level of scrutiny and accountability placed on the government of the day is justifiably high. I once heard that the spending of taxpayers' money was a sacred trust. The public have high expectations on this point and are aided in this respect by the Auditor-General. To quote former New South Wales Auditor-General, Tony Harris:
Governments have always been accountable in the widest sense of that term for their use of public moneys. Thus, they always have had to defend: the appropriateness of their policy objectives; the effectiveness of the mechanisms used to meet those objectives; the efficiency in their use of available resources; and the economy with which they acquire those resources. They are also accountable for their compliance with the law and for the probity or ethics of their actions. It is not different today.
That is as good a description of the role of the Auditor-General as could be found. It was through meeting with Mr Harris over the Bruce Stadium report that I initiated this bill before us today.
The Auditor-General's inquiry into the Bruce Stadium redevelopment and subsequent report have highlighted for me a number of deficiencies in our legislation. I refer firstly to the notion put forward by the government that the Auditor-General, Mr Parkinson, had gone beyond the boundaries of his brief and wrongly included comments on whether the redevelopment represented value for money.
I am surprised that the government still believes that to be so. I disagree, and in my reading of the Auditor-General Act I cannot find a section that says that the Auditor-General must restrict himself to certain categories of comment. However, in order to make it absolutely clear, I am seeking a change that will allow the Auditor-General to conduct an inquiry and comment on any matter that he sees fit. I believe that this is the sort of latitude that the act was intended to provide in the first place and is exactly the latitude afforded under New South Wales law.
Secondly, I have provided for the Auditor-General's reports to be presented out of session and for all reports to be referred to the public accounts committee for whatever consideration they regard as appropriate. I realise that it is Assembly convention to refer reports to the committee, but there is no compulsion either in the act or under standing orders to do so. I have added a further requirement for the Auditor-General to appear before the committee as a witness to discuss the contents of each report.
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