Page 3795 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 18 October 2005
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The justification for less frequent reporting is that high quality measures and more useful reporting will offset the delay. However, the Opposition is not convinced that six-monthly reporting on outputs will improve accountability. In fact, I fear it will do the opposite. That is why we have proposed amendments to require ministers to present to the Assembly quarterly performance reports for the departments and agencies for which they are responsible within 30 days after the end of each of the first three quarters of a financial year.
We see this as necessary to keep members of the Assembly well informed in a timeframe relevant to emerging trends. By contrast, the delay inherent in six-monthly reporting means that key events and measures of performance are more likely to have passed into history, so that disclosure of them may be seen as of lesser public interest. In other words, if you delay long enough, the issue will hopefully fade in importance.
I know that is a cynical perspective, and I am not one who is cynical about the Treasurer’s approach in such matters, but I think it is a real matter of concern that we do not have the level of accountability that I am advocating here today. We believe that less frequent reporting diminishes other aspects of the financial management bill that provide for useful data to be included in performance reports. By reducing the number of performance reports departments need to produce, the capacity for this legislation to achieve its purpose will, I suggest, be markedly reduced.
I suspect that the Treasurer does see merit in what I am saying and the problem here might be an issue of trying to get the departments to meet these particular reporting performance targets, but I would strongly argue that we should not give up the battle that easily. I therefore put forward this amendment for consideration by the Assembly.
MR QUINLAN (Molonglo—Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development and Business, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Sport and Recreation, and Minister for Racing and Gaming) (5.33): The government will not be accepting this amendment. I have already stated in this place good and sound reasons for that. The preparation of financial statements at a given date and all the balance day adjustments and processes that go with it to give an accurate picture is not as simple as Mr Mulcahy seems to think. I suggest that he should reflect on it or call for someone who has had some direct experience with it.
We see half-yearly reporting as the only sensible regime of reporting. First of all, the first quarter is simply too short a period to provide any real indication as to what will be the outcome for the year. So scratch the first quarter as being useless. I have been in this place for a number of years and I have never seen the reports, as such, engender much debate at all. We do intend, of course, to have a half-yearly report, so that is quarter number two covered.
By the time a report for quarter number three would be due, the government would be presenting its annual budget. That annual budget will go even further than a third quarter report. It will actually give the estimate of the final outcome expected for the year, which is much more information than would be contained in a quarterly report replete with timing differences and therefore distorted.
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