Page 4004 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 20 September 2011
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Mr Speaker, the government of the day is entitled to select its statutory officers on the criteria that it sets. This parliament is not the interviewing panel for appointments. It is not the interviewing panel for the Auditor-General, Mr Speaker. It is not. If you have a look at the authority of the PAC, it is to reject something. It is not to set it up. It is not to select the criteria. It is not to conduct the interviews. It is, in fact, to make a position known to this chamber on the position put forward to it by the government of the day.
The committee can say, “We are not happy with the selection criteria; government, please change it going forward.” I do not have a problem with that. That is an advisory. But Mr Smyth was not happy because the applicant who succeeded did not meet his personal criteria for the appointment as an Auditor-General. He twisted and turned the requirements under the act.
Mr Smyth: Relevance.
MR HARGREAVES: I do not have to be relevant, Mr Smyth.
Mr Smyth: Yes, you do.
MR HARGREAVES: I do not. This is a privileges committee debate. This is a privileges committee debate and this is a very serious matter. I think you are treating this thing with a comical contempt. In fact, I thought better of you in the past and I am bitterly disappointed that you take this attitude.
Mr Speaker, I contend that there was no interference. I would also contend that the likelihood of interference going forward is not there. I would also contend, Mr Speaker, that the convening of a privileges committee will do nothing more than perpetuate this conversation and do exactly what Mr Smyth wants: give him a platform where he can spruik his particular opposition to this particular appointment. The fact is that the appointment has been made. It is a good appointment. I was there when Mr Smyth congratulated the new Auditor-General on her appointment. Yet we are talking about a process.
We will have before this chamber a conversation around whether or not the Auditor-General should be an officer of the parliament. That time is the perfect time to look at the criteria of appointment. It is a good time to look at the length of term that the Auditor-General should enjoy. It will be the time when we will look at the relationship of the parliament to that position, the relationship of the public accounts committee to that particular position. It is not to engage in what I perceive to be an exercise in just putting one’s own view about an appointment process on the record as often and as frequently as one can.
Mr Smyth’s motion should be rejected. I understand the depth of his feeling and I actually acknowledged that in the committee. But you also have to ask yourself, Mr Speaker, what this privileges committee will actually achieve. What will it do? I will have to answer the question by saying, “Not much.” The first part was dealt with appropriately by Ms Le Couteur. The second part was only one press release and not a campaign.
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