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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Thursday, 4 March 2004) . . Page.. 738 ..

Leave granted.

MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, I move:

That the report be authorised for publication.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

MR SMYTH: I move:

That the report be noted.

Mr Speaker, the review of the Auditor-General’s report 9 is in fact a review of what I think you could consider as the Auditor-General’s own annual report for the year. The committee enjoyed looking at this because one of the functions of the Public Accounts Committee is of course to take a great interest in the Auditor-General and the function that that officer’s office performs. With that in mind, the committee made four simple recommendations.

The first recommendation suggests that the Auditor-General consults with the Standing Committee on Public Accounts about the program that she is going to undertake at the commencement of each calendar year. One of the functions of the committee, of course, is to recommend to the Treasurer that the proposed budget for the Auditor-General’s Office be adopted. Given that that office knows clearly what it is going to do and that it does consult with members—it does an annual survey—it would be appropriate, without interfering with the functions of the Auditor-General, for there to be some more formal dialogue without legislating for it, so that the committee is kept abreast of the inquiries that the Auditor-General’s Office undertakes.

Recommendation 2 will be of interest to some and not to others. The auditor has recommended some changes to the act that would allow the Auditor-General’s Office to report in different ways. These recommendations were not picked up by the government; it is the majority view of the committee that they should be included when amendments to the Auditor-General Act are brought to this place in the next period of time, and that the government includes the proposed amendments to sections 34 and 19 as proposed by the Auditor-General. We think it is important for accountability and would certainly look forward to a fuller explanation from the government as to why it would not like those two sections to be amended.

In regard to recommendation 3, in 1996 this place incorporated into the Auditor-General Act that when performance audits are done they incorporate environmental concerns. The definition of “environment” at that time included social outcomes. It has been of concern to this committee, since I joined the committee, that that does not appear to have been done effectively. That is not a slight on the Auditor-General and the office. It is a new and emerging area and we just feel that it is something that has not received emphasis.

We had debate with the Auditor last year about the adequacy of the budget and about whether there was enough training money in the budget to get staff up to speed. One of

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