Page 2827 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 24 June 2009
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I think there’s potential for a very hard look at the 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.
In the context of what the auditor had said, these are blatant threats and an attack on the independence of the Auditor-General, the independent watchdog.
But then you go back to 2006, when we had a report on Mr Stanhope and Ms Gallagher’s behaviour as the shareholders of Rhodium. And what did the Chief Minister think of the Rhodium report? They were “just gratuitous remarks, throwaway remarks, from the Auditor-General”. They are not gratuitous and they are not throwaway remarks. Auditors-general, by their very nature, are cautious in their language and very exacting, and they mean what they say.
We go back to 2005. The Chief Minister, on reading the Auditor-General’s report on payments to a former head of his department, said, “It is a low priority during budget week.” Everything that is not acceptable to him is a low priority or he does not read the report.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why the Greens would take the context, would take the facts of what he said, out of the motion. Somebody reading Hansard in later years would read that and understand what we were talking about.
I notice that part (c) of Mr Seselja’s motion also disappears. It was:
(c) that recommendation 14 of the Select Committee on Estimates 2009-2010 was that the Auditor-General’s funding allocation be increased to allow for the target number of performance audits to be reached without running a deficit.
I think it is quite important. We can reach the number of audits but it will push her into deficit. If that is acceptable to the Greens, if the Greens think that is good management, if the Greens think that is holding them to account, that is fine. But it is not. I do not see what the problem with that is. It is a recommendation in the report agreed to by the majority of members, and that included two Greens. It is beyond comment, I suspect. The problem here is that the Greens refuse to hold the Chief Minister to account. Part (5) is removed. It reads:
(5) condemns the Chief Minister for his veiled threat against the ACT Auditor-General made on 19 June 2009.
If you look back at what people have said, people are concerned by his comments but we let him off scot-free. He is not held to account in this place. There is no record of him being held to account if that is removed from this motion. For the life of me, I am not sure why the Greens want to remove that. Do they agree with his comments? Should he get away with these comments? Should he not be held account for his comments? Apparently not!
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