Page 1664 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 3 May 2011
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Around the world—indeed, around Australia—the standard that is normally accepted is that for every dollar you spend on the Auditor-General you can save $9 or $10 through increased efficiencies, through the advice that comes from an external body. If we are serious about making savings and improving service levels, clearly one of the ways that you can start that process is to back the Auditor-General.
The report last year into the Auditor-General’s Office said that, with respect to the performance audit function, the funding that was currently devoted to it made it barely viable, and I think that is a shame. The ACT have in many ways led on performance auditing. They have been very successful—on both sides. Governments do not like criticism; they do not like getting reports that might call into account what they have been doing.
At the same time, if you are fair dinkum about looking out for the ordinary citizens of the ACT and ensuring that they get best value for their dollar, the taxpayers’ dollar, which is what government is spending, one of the ways you can do that is to fund the Auditor-General. I am sure we all look forward to finding out later in the day what that figure will be.
What the public accounts committee has suggested is a sensible path forward. It is not saying, “Let’s just double the budget,” or some figure that we have plucked out of the air. We have consulted with the audit office. They have said that the costs are very well known for each performance audit, and what we have said is that we need to move to a path where we will be doing, as a minimum, some 12 performance audits a year, but hopefully we will see that get from 12 to 14 or 15 a year.
We have recommended that in the next couple of years there be two extra audits funded and then in the years after that one each. It is a very sensible and very reasonable path forward. Indeed, I look forward to seeing whether or not this government are willing to accept the advice of the audit office—whether they actually are willing to fund it to a level that will make savings for them or allow them to deliver extra services, which of course will take pressure off the cost of living for ordinary Canberrans and their families.
We need to ensure, though, that the audit office is viable. We need to ensure that we work towards the percentage which is emerging around Australia and around the world—as a rule of thumb, that you would like to be seeing about half the expenditure of the audit office on financial audits. Under our act they are mandated, they are statutory; so they have to be done. They currently absorb about 70 per cent of the audit office funding.
We want to see it move to a point where we are getting about a fifty-fifty split. We have proposed a very sensible path that will allow it to grow. That also means that the audit office can recruit the staff that are required. Qualified auditors and the sorts of staff required to do this work are getting quite rare. There is a big battle here in the ACT among our audit office, the National Audit Office, the departments and the various firms that work here.
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