Page 5584 - Week 13 - Thursday, 17 November 2011
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When you say, “I put it out because I was afraid it would leak,” you have to question why this nomination would leak. What were you afraid of? In 22 years in this place, I am not aware of a statutory appointment leaking. So maybe you are right: maybe it is about you and your poor process. And this is the culmination of where your process has led us.
I can count the numbers; the process will leave with this appointment being confirmed. Those on this side of the house will work with the Auditor-General, as we have done with the last Auditor-General and the one before that. We, like the government, when we were in office, had some reports that we were perhaps less than happy with, but we supported the Auditor-General. Indeed, on many occasions I have been the lone voice in this place willing to vote in favour of extra resources for the auditor and more performance audits from the audit office so that we get the value that auditors bring to modern government by saving the government costs and by improving services.
The problem here is that the Auditor-General has been let down by you, Chief Minister—by your failed attempts to change the process. The committee today said, “Obviously, what we are going to have to do is quantify and somehow define what the process should be in the future.” That is because of this mess that you have landed us in. It basically directs the government not to release the names of any more statutory appointments—that the executive not release publicly the names of any person that is to be considered by an Assembly committee. That is a rebuff to you and it is a rebuttal of your poor process.
This is about getting it right for the people of the ACT. The Auditor-General, as I have said in this place many times, and auditors-general around the world, now have a large amount of evidence that says that for everything they do, for every dollar you spend on the auditor, you will make a saving of about 10 in government. That is why this position is so important. It helps reduce the cost of living on the ordinary taxpayer because we get better value for money and we get better delivery of services. In tight fiscal times, both of those objectives are to be commended.
We have no guarantee of that in this process, because apparently the qualifications required for the position of Auditor-General are now simply anything greater than a bachelor’s degree. If people think that is okay, that is fine; put it in the advert. But the advertisement said “appropriate tertiary qualifications”. If that was an advert for a medical doctor at the hospital—if we want doctors: a gynaecologist or oncologist—everybody would say that they probably need to be a doctor. If you are applying for the position of chief architect of the ACT, people would probably think that, if you needed suitable qualifications, you might be an architect. If you were going to be the chief engineer of the ACT, I suspect that most people, looking at that ad, would think you would probably need an engineering degree to apply for that job.
The job advert here says, “Appropriate tertiary qualifications are a prerequisite.” It does not say, “Advanced thinkers or lateral thinkers required.” It says, “Appropriate tertiary qualifications”. To say that an appropriate tertiary qualification for the Auditor-General of the ACT is anything better than a bachelor’s degree is to demean the position. It is an incredibly important position. It has statutory requirements,
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