Page 2804 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 24 June 2009
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(4) commends the ACT Auditor-General’s Office for its past work on behalf of the community; and
(5) condemns the Chief Minister for his veiled threat against the ACT Auditor-General made on 19 June 2009.
The reason I am moving this motion and the reason the opposition feels it is important to move this motion today have arisen out of Mr Stanhope’s remarks last week. It is in the motion, but it is worth highlighting just what the Chief Minister said. Of course, we all know exactly what he meant. We saw him warn the Auditor-General on 19 June:
I think there’s potential for a very hard look at efficiencies within the Auditor-General’s office … I think perhaps it’s time for the Auditor-General’s office to be audited so we can have a look at the appropriateness of the level of her funding.
Those of us who have seen Jon Stanhope in operation for some time know exactly what he meant by that: he did not like what was in the Auditor-General’s report. There have been a number of reports over the years which this government has not enjoyed. All governments, from time to time, do not enjoy reports of auditors-general when they are critical of the performance of governments. But we have seen his behaviour over a period of time, which I will come back to in a few minutes.
We know exactly what he meant. What he was saying was: “Get back in your box or what you will find is that you will actually have less funding. You think it is hard to survive on the funding you have now? Well, wait till I’m done with you.” That was the subtext of what the Chief Minister said. Everyone could see it. Everyone knows it. Jon Stanhope’s attempts to back away from it today are embarrassing, and we will come back to them in a minute.
It is worth looking at what Tu Pham had to say at estimates in relation to funding. This is a very important point. She stated:
The government’s proposed funding for the audit office of $2.1 million in 2009-10 will not be sufficient for us to maintain the current audit capacity, nor will it be sufficient to increase our capacity to respond to the increase in government spending. In 2009-10, without any additional funding, the office will seek to reduce employee costs to return to a balanced budget, because, as you know, this year, 2008-09, we are operating at a deficit of $199,000. In a small office, we have very little capacity to cut costs elsewhere, so we had to forgo some employee costs. That is the biggest cost pressure on our office and ultimately it will lead to a reduction in our capacity to conduct our work, especially in performance audits.
I believe that it would be prudent for the Assembly to ensure that we receive additional funding to provide independent advice to the Assembly on the delivery of government services, especially given the large amount of new and increased government spending under both local and commonwealth stimulus packages in the next year and the years to come. At the end of the day, I will
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