Page 2643 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 23 June 2009
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The auditor-general is not subject to direction by the Executive or any Minister in the exercise of the functions of the auditor-general.
It is interesting—and Ms Le Couteur mentioned the conference that the public accounts committee attended—that around the world people are starting to view the performance audits of their audit office as being as important as, if not more important than, the financial audits, simply because the financial audits are now, in the main, computerised; they are done in a way which makes it very hard for them to be manipulated.
But it is in delivery—what we do through the taxpayers’ dollars that are spent by departments at the direction of their ministers—it is looking at the performance; it is actually looking at the output. What did the taxpayer get for the dollar that was spent on his or her behalf that this government is so worried about? And we hear it time and time again. This is an inputs-based government; it is like all Labor governments. “We spent more money, therefore we are doing a good job.”
But by any objective measure, if you look across the board at the performance of this government—and just take Health, for instance—yes, the budget has gone up but the performance has not gone up commensurately. That is the problem and that is why the Auditor-General and the independence of that office are so important.
It was an extraordinary outburst from Mr Stanhope last week and it is extraordinary for the Chief Minister to behave in this way. What the Chief Minister has now questioned is funding for the Auditor-General and the efficiency of the Auditor-General’s Office. It is interesting that around the world—we were told at the conference that we just attended—various jurisdictions are allowing the auditor-general to be funded through different mechanisms; that it does not go through the executive. In some cases it is negotiated directly by the auditor-general with the treasury or it is done by the parliament. Why is that happening? Because governments are squeezing auditors when they come up with decisions that the government of the day does not like.
Then Mr Stanhope proposes a rigorous audit of the Auditor-General. The Auditor-General can be audited; the Auditor-General has been audited. It can be done at the direction of PAC. And the public accounts committee, which over the last seven years has been variously controlled by different parties in this place, have the right to authorise the auditing of the Auditor-General.
If the Chief Minister is concerned, I do not recall—and I have been on PAC all the time for the last seven years—any letters from the Chief Minister asking that she be audited. I do not recall, until the Chief Minister gets a bad report card, that he suddenly thought that the Auditor-General should be the subject of a rigorous audit.
Then we get this absolutely ridiculous notion—and again it is perpetuated in the response from the Treasurer—that somehow the Auditor-General is overfunded; somehow she gets too much money. And it needs to be read, members. I will read it here now. Recommendation 14 is “Let us give the Auditor-General the funding to do the job properly.” Government response:
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