Page 271 - Week 01 - Thursday, 17 February 2011
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amount of consensus in the report. A big thankyou to about-to-become Dr Andrea Cullen for her support and research—a sterling job and much appreciated. A big thankyou also to Lydia Chung and Lesley Irvine for their much-valued support. I commend most of the report to the Assembly.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (11.34): It is always a pleasure to speak after Mr Hargreaves. I note that he has commended most of the report to the Assembly. I think people need to read the report before they make a decision about what it is attempting to achieve. They are recommendations. Some other bodies—the government, the Assembly, admin and procedure committee—will have to take these issues and deal with them, and I hope they do. There is an opportunity here to look at how we deal with the Auditor-General, how the Auditor-General is resourced, and what role the Auditor-General truly performs on behalf of the Assembly.
Recommendation 1 sets off a string of recommendations about the position the Auditor-General holds and whether or not the Auditor-General should be an officer of the parliament. This is done in other places. It is not a big step, it is not a controversial step, but it gives to the office of Auditor-General the position that says, “As an office of the parliament it is acting on behalf of the parliament, it is responsible to the parliament and it will do the will of the parliament.” I think that is a very important distinction to the way that it has been portrayed.
Recommendation 5, for instance, says that the Auditor-General be required through the act to consult with the public accounts committee regarding its annual performance audit program. This is very, very important. The PAC looks after the Auditor-General on behalf of the Assembly. The Auditor-General talks regularly with the PAC, but it is about codifying in this case what is to be done and ensuring that it is done.
There are a series of recommendations that follow. No 7 recommends that the act be amended to provide capacity for the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to recommend to the executive an appointment to the office of Auditor-General. Currently we have veto power, but we cannot recommend anybody else. We have seen recently, for instance, the behaviour of the government over the appointment of the advertising officer. What this says is that the Assembly should have a role in this position following the logic that if the Auditor-General is responsible to the Assembly, surely the Assembly should have some say in who carries out that role for the Assembly. I think people need to read the string of recommendations that follow in the light of what it is attempting.
Mr Hargreaves touched on recommendation 23. Look, it might not have happened, but who is to say it will not happen in the future. It just clarifies the position that a number of us hold here, particularly on things like estimates and PAC, which are very important committees. It is about making sure that the committees that review the finances of the government particularly are independent of the government and remain that way. I do not think it is too evil or too sinister. Yes, it may codify what currently happens, but it will ensure that it continues to happen in the future and that we make sure that it happens in that way.
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