Page 1800 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 15 June 1993
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PUBLIC ACCOUNTS - STANDING COMMITTEE
Report on Audit (Amendment) Bill 1993
MR KAINE (4.56): Madam Speaker, pursuant to order, I present the report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts entitled "Audit (Amendment) Bill 1993", together with extracts from the minutes of proceedings, and I move:
That the report be noted.
Madam Speaker, it was only a short while ago that the Government tabled in this house its Audit (Amendment) Bill 1993. On the face of it, that was a fairly innocuous Bill. If you read it quickly it said, essentially, two things: First, that the Government intended to employ outside financial managers to look after the investment of surplus money; and, secondly, that it amended the Audit Act to remove words to the effect that money in the trust fund could not be invested in this fashion. So, on the face of it, it was not very important.
But at the time that the Bill was initially debated in the Assembly I made it quite clear that it had many ramifications, none of which had been explained by the Government. How were these outside financial managers going to be managed? Who was going to make sure that they managed our money efficiently and effectively and in the public interest, since the Treasury themselves had said, in an explanatory note, that they did not have the expertise to invest this money themselves? What, in fact, were the ramifications of this amendment of the Audit Act that removed the existing constraint on trust fund money? It was my intention at that time, Madam Speaker, that we in the Opposition would oppose the Bill in its present form on the basis that the Government should take it back and fill the gaps, and explain to this Assembly more comprehensively how they intended this new arrangement to work. Fortunately or unfortunately, as the case may be, Mr Moore moved that the matter be referred to the Public Accounts Committee for further examination and review, and we have been carrying out such a review for some time. Our recommendations are now presented.
Our inquiry into this matter, I believe, was an interesting learning experience. For example, when the Audit Act says, as it does at the moment, that money in the trust fund up until this point cannot be invested in this fashion, it begs the question, "What is the trust fund?". If you go to the Audit Act, section 85, it explains what the trust fund is, but it does not really tell you what kind of money is held in that trust account. It describes the trust account, but it does not say what money will be transferred into it or may be transferred out of it. So you are left with a question: What money are we actually talking about, even when you remove the current exception which then allows money in the trust fund to be invested in the ways now being proposed by the Government?
Our investigations - I am still not certain - show how difficult it is, sometimes, first of all, to pose the questions correctly and then to understand the answers that you get. I believe that the money that is currently in the trust fund - Treasury were conveying the impression that this was the money they intended to invest - is in fact superannuation trust fund money. Questioning elicited the fact that there is something of the order of $120m of superannuation money held in trust by the Government at the moment. That is expected to increase year by year as we become fully funded in terms of our ACT Government Service employees. That becomes more and more important when we look at the potential for establishing our own ACT Public Service in the near future.
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