Page 3322 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 17 August 2011
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The committee has resolved, for the purposes of progressing its inquiry into the exposure draft of the Financial Management (Ethical Investment) Legislation Amendment Bill 2010, that, notwithstanding standing order 226, Mr Brendan Smyth shall chair the inquiry. I seek leave to move a motion on this matter.
Leave granted.
MS LE COUTEUR: I move:
That the Assembly approves the action taken by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in relation to the chairing arrangements for the Committee’s inquiry into the exposure draft of the Financial Management (Ethical Investment) Legislation Amendment Bill 2010.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (10.20): I will obviously be agreeing to the motion, as will the opposition. But I think I need to explain the basis for my decision to resign as deputy chair of the public accounts committee. It is certainly not a decision I take lightly. Initially I would like to thank the members, Mr Hargreaves and the chair, Ms Le Couteur, for their support in this process. They both tried to talk me out of doing it. I do feel very strongly on this issue and I think where you feel strongly on a matter of principle you should take appropriate action.
In effect, the referral of the position of Auditor-General to the public accounts committee could be seen as an inquiry and the letter that we sent to the Chief Minister at the end of that could be considered to be a report. In that regard, please consider this as my dissenting report. This is a difficult decision but I believe it is warranted in view of the circumstances surrounding the appointment of the new Auditor-General.
The public accounts committee has a formal role in the appointment process for the Auditor-General and I have very serious concerns about the veracity of the government’s processes which were followed and which led to this appointment, in particular the way in which the role of the PAC was viewed by various of the players and the undue pressure that was placed on the PAC by the actions taken particularly by the Chief Minister.
I first became aware that the government had a preferred candidate for this important position from reports in the media on the morning of 31 May 2011. Indeed, some of these media reports included interviews with the preferred candidate. I then learned that the Chief Minister, Ms Katy Gallagher, had put out a press release. It was headed “New Auditor-General for the ACT” and said in line 1:
Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher, today announced the proposed appointment of …
the preferred candidate. Three days later, I think it is important to record, on 3 June 2011, the Canberra Times published an article headed “Gallagher’s push for new auditor ‘miffs’ MLA”. It set out some concerns about the process which had been followed. I was certainly miffed and I think there was an enormous amount of concern within the committee about how the process had unfolded. Indeed, on the day in
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