Page 4426 - Week 10 - Thursday, 23 September 2010
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I would like to second the remarks that my colleague Mr Smyth made in a previous speech. He was a little bit more timely than the government in this regard. It is a matter of considerable disappointment and concern that the government’s response to the Auditor-General’s report took approximately 13 months to be received by the committee. I suppose I can only hope this indicates that they put a lot of effort into it, but I fear that may not be the reason for it.
I will just conclude my brief remarks by thanking my committee colleagues, Mr Smyth and Mr Hargreaves, but, in thanking Mr Hargreaves, I should note that Mr Hargreaves chose not to participate in the committee’s decisions and deliberations, as he was a relevant minister in the past. Also, of course, I thank the committee officers Andrea Cullen and Lydia Chung for their hard work. I commend the report to the Assembly. My colleagues may also wish to provide comment.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (11.49): I will start where the chair left off, with thankyous. I thank the chair, Ms Burch, who was on the committee for part of the time, and Mr Hargreaves, who completed the report with us, and Andrea and Lydia from the secretariat, who were very helpful in putting the report together.
Ms Le Couteur made an important comment when she talked about the part that Mr Hargreaves played in this. Mr Hargreaves was, in fact, minister for part of the time that covered the original report and, as such, did not participate. I think he set a very good standard there. It is important, where potential conflict of interest arises, that members of committees make it known right from the start and, if necessary, do leave the discussions, if they believe the conflict of interest warrants that. Mr Hargreaves was up-front about this right from the start. It is to his credit that he did it, and it is a good standard that he has set.
Basically, the report says there are some things happening and it is impossible for us to make an inquiry into the follow-up report because the things that are happening are the subject of the first report. I think it is important to get the chronology there. The Auditor-General’s report No 4 of 2006 was tabled in the Assembly on 27 June 2006. Here we are, more than four years later, and some of the things that have come out of that report in 2006 are still being addressed by the government or are still in the process of being addressed by the government.
As the committee said in its review of the Auditor-General’s report on financial audits, departments need to be appropriately resourced to get the bulk of the recommendations in place, if they are accepted. Four years later, on the question of road safety, you do have to ask the question: is it quick enough that, four years after that, the performance audit reveals that these things are still being implemented?
The chair has already raised the dilemma the committee had that it took the government 13 months after the presentation of the audit report for the committee to get the government submission. It is impossible for the committee to do its work until we get the government’s submission. I am not sure that we ever got an adequate explanation for why it took 13 months.
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