Page 2436 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 22 August 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
It is a fundamentally important function. It is important for the efficient operation of any organisation and, most particularly, the public service. We have through this budget increased resourcing for the office by around half a million dollars. That was a recognition by the government of the need to ensure that the Auditor-General has the resources to appropriately audit.
In the context of this budget, the staff that will be employed as a result of the extra half million dollars gives a capacity to expand efficiency in other audits across the service governance. From time to time they would perhaps prefer that a particular audit might not have been undertaken or a particular report perhaps not delivered. They sometimes contain findings and recommendations that from time to time cause governments of all persuasions, of all colours in all parliaments some discomfort, and of course there is always a tension.
The role and function of the Auditor-General’s Office is important. It has enormous benefits for a transparent and accountable government. It has a fundamental internal role—internal to the extent that it is a process conducted on the operations of the government, most particularly through its public service—but is statutorily independent, and rightly so, with a broad-ranging remit to investigate all aspects of ACT government service delivery.
This is a significant injection of resources into the office of the Auditor-General to ensure that we are operating efficiently and effectively, that ACT government operations are exposed to objective and rigorous assessment by the Auditor-General. In a tight budgetary situation, in a budget where very few organisations or arms of government received additional funds, this is a significant injection of additional resources which will allow the auditor to employ a significant number of additional auditors to oversight, investigate and audit the operations of the ACT government.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (12.15): I am also pleased that the Auditor-General’s request to the ACT government for more funding has been accepted. I note that this will allow the office to undertake around three additional performance audits in the next year, increasing the number to 10 instead of seven previously.
I understand that the Auditor-General’s preference might have been for the funding to be boosted and I have no doubt that this would have ultimately benefited the Canberra community. However, in the context of budget cuts, it was unlikely that this would occur. Perhaps we should just be pleased about the modest increase the office has achieved.
This does not mean that I do not think the Auditor-General’s Office should have the capacity to perform its important job of scrutiny with several more reports annually. As a member of the public accounts committee I have probably had more opportunity than other members of the Assembly to study the Auditor-General’s report in some detail. Of course, we are currently conducting a number of inquiries into some of those reports and their implications.
I have to say that the Auditor-General’s reports provide an expert and useful analysis of areas of governance. Consequently, I hope that next year the government will be in a
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .