Page 868 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 2 May 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Advance and its legality could also be questioned”. Yes, that is it: it is an abuse and it should be questioned.
Yesterday we saw the Chief Minister hiding behind the Auditor-General. In response to every question that was asked about an FOI that the Canberra Times had put in and the subsequent questions that emerged from that lack of information, the Chief Minister used the Auditor-General as his defence. In the good governance stakes, if you are tossing up the Auditor-General as the only ball you have left and you kick, you are in desperate straits.
The Chief Minister said yesterday that the ACT has an independent, well resourced auditor who has recently undertaken an inquiry into credit card use in relation to the ACT public service. That is all very well, but the auditor comes into play only after the event—after the supposed good governance that this government has been abiding by! The Auditor-General does not set the accountability framework; this is another case of the government putting the cart before the horse.
We have heard the story of the FMA. Why was the FMA amended? Why did the government have to amend it? Why were they dragged kicking and screaming to the amendment by the Liberal Party and the Democrats? Because its legality could be questioned and there was a misuse of the Treasurer’s advance. So much for good governance.
Yesterday the Chief Minister said this in relation to questions that were being asked about credit card use:
We need to understand and acknowledge the minute or minuscule part of an overall budget or agency expenditure that is involved in credit card use.
Just what is the Chief Minister saying? Is he saying that we do not need to worry about what happens to small amounts? I certainly hope not. There are issues over accounting for small amounts, because little errors grow into big errors. We have cultural issues about the acceptance of a mistake of any kind. It would be most inappropriate for the Chief Minister to say that small mistakes are okay.
When the Chief Minister does not know his facts, he just lashes out. So much for no more diatribes in response to questions. In talking about the capital works reports, he said:
The reports were certainly not user friendly. They were largely comprised of very complex spreadsheets that listed individual projects and funds spent against a particular project as at a certain date.
We have read those words before. The Chief Minister is quoting from the Canberra Times. In the Canberra Times of 18 April 2007 these are the very words that are provided to the newspaper by a Treasury spokesman. Who does the Chief Minister think we are? Who does he think the ACT community are? Does he think they are all stupid? It is precisely because of the detail in these reports that they are so useful, and it is because of the detail and the failure of this government over the last six years to deliver on capital works that it has suppressed them. So much for honest, open, accountable government.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .