Page 4000 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 20 September 2011
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appointment of the Auditor-General; and (b) had it caused or was it likely to cause substantial interference with the work of the Assembly’s committee system.
The committee considered this, as is appropriate, and we responded to you through the chair, Ms Le Couteur, on 7 September this year. In regard to the two questions, basically, both (a) and (b), yes, the committee believed there was interference. In regard to question (a), it was hard to determine what the effect of that interference was, but in regard to question (b), yes, the committee did believe that there was substantial interference. On those grounds, members, where you have a committee saying that it has been interfered with in a substantial way in the course of its duty, the only course you have to follow today is, of course, to appoint a select committee on privileges to inquire into this. If we do not protect the way that our committees function, if we do not protect the way in which statutory appointments are made, if we do not as committees hold the government to account, of course, we are diminishing this place, we are diminishing our responsibility and we are letting down the constituents that put us here. I will read from the letter that came back from the committee:
The committee duly considered your correspondence at its private meeting on 30 August 2011. On behalf of the committee I wish to advise with regard to point (a) that the majority of the committee was of the view that the matter raised by Mr Smyth had caused interference with its work.
So the majority of the committee believed we had been interfered with in the processes that we were following. We had been interfered with in our quest to ensure that the appointment of the new Auditor-General was appropriate and had followed good process and good governance. What did the committee find? We had been interfered with. It goes on to say:
However the committee was unable to determine whether the interference was substantial.
Some of that, of course, is subjective. But the important thing here is that the committee found there was influence and it had caused us trouble with our process.
In regard to point (b), in a way, point (b) could be even more important than point (a). Point (b) is: “Is it interfering with the committee system and does it have the potential to interfere with the committee system and its processes into the future?” Because remember, members, if we set a precedent today, that precedent is incredibly hard to undo.
What I am asking you to do today is to send this matter to a committee for a committee to determine and make recommendations back to this place so that we get this right for the future, so that this does not happen again, so that committees are not interfered with by the executive and, indeed, so that committees are not interfered with by the Chief Minister, who should set the example. Indeed, on coming to office, the Chief Minister said that there would be a new era of openness and accountability. Instead what we had was this attempt to subvert the process of the committee to appoint the new Auditor-General on which the committee has now found there was interference.
In regard to (b), it is worth reading it out:
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