Page 2683 - Week 09 - Thursday, 25 August 1994
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concerns by providing consolidated information on all transactions within the Territory public account. All of the Government information reporting is also included in Budget Paper No. 2, consistent with government finance statistics concepts. Further improvements in uniform presentation of government financial information will become evident in 1995-96 when full GFS reporting is implemented. While no comparison of outcome to estimates was possible for the 1994-95 budget papers, as was recommended by the Auditor-General, an initial outcome statement was provided in August, and further documentation, as I have said before, will be provided to the Assembly in September.
I would also like to comment briefly on the question of aggregate financial statements and the move towards accrual accounting. I previously advised the Assembly that the Government recognises the potential benefits in financial disclosure and program management that are associated with the progressive move towards the introduction of accrual accounting. This initiative provides significant opportunities for the ACT to develop an improved financial management environment aimed at meeting our own specific requirements.
The Appropriation Bill that is presently before the Assembly and last year's budget included additional funding aimed at bringing these reforms on line at the earliest possible opportunity. It is a quite significant upgrading task, so we needed to make provision for the resources that would be required. The ACT Treasury, together with all of the ACT Government Service agencies, are presently developing these concepts through a series of workshops which deal with financial reform and the practical implementation of both accrual reporting and accrual management. I anticipate that very shortly the Government will be considering a detailed timetable for the introduction of both accrual accounting and overall improvements in financial management. At that point I will provide the Assembly with a more detailed outline of the directions of the Government's proposed financial reforms.
MR KAINE (11.37), in reply: Mr Deputy Speaker, this particular Auditor-General's report dealt with some very significant matters in terms of accountability. He made a number of comments indicating that in his view the current method of accounting and reporting used by the ACT Government is inadequate because it simply does not present a full and complete picture of the financial transactions of the Government, its solvency or otherwise, a full statement of assets and liabilities and the like - things which can be done and which are being done elsewhere. For many decades there was an argument that it was inappropriate for government to do these things, and that government could not do it because of its particular requirements in terms of its own internal accountancy. That has been demonstrated to be patently untrue. I think that the Public Accounts Committee accepts the Auditor-General's comments as being legitimate.
Admittedly, the Government has begun to move towards adopting some of these things; but we were concerned about two things, and I would like to reiterate them. We were concerned, first of all, that there did not appear to be a great deal of commitment on the part of the Treasury to move towards the resolution of the issues that the Auditor-General had raised. In fact, we said this at paragraph 2.8 of our report:
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