Page 739 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 1 May 2007
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sequencing right—initiated her own reference and inquiry into credit card use by ACT government agencies.
My memory and recollection are that, yes, there were a number of irregularities in credit card use, but they were not remarkable and did not generate particularly adverse comments. I note and am aware that I do not recall the detail of the findings the member raised in his question. I certainly do not dispute that the Auditor-General identified a number of expenditures that were not consistent with guidelines. Nevertheless, my recollection—and I will have to go back to the report and check this—of the auditor’s report is that all agencies had appropriate or adequate guidelines in place, that they were clear and well understood and that all agencies had in place satisfactory controls for credit card expenditure.
We need to understand and acknowledge the minute or minuscule part of an overall budget or agency expenditure that is involved in credit card use. The amounts that have been mentioned, I assume, were the worst-case issues, perhaps, of an inappropriate use of a credit card, at least in the first instance that the report revealed. We are talking here about a sum total of $20,000 in an annual government spend of $3 billion. The total credit card use was about $3 million in a $3 billion budget, or one per cent or 0.3 per cent—the old maths is not too great.
Let us put this in some perspective. We are talking of a total credit card spend of around $3 million in a $3 billion budget. The member, in his question, raises concerns about $20,000 of that $3 million in a $3 billion budget.
That is not to say that these are not serious issues about guidelines which exist and should be observed. In large measure, they are. The guidelines are appropriate. They match the arrangements in place in all other jurisdictions. You will find the Auditor-General in that report—and I will have to go back to this and respond in more detail, as I have said I would—found essentially that processes were appropriate and that there were a range of checks and balances. You will find—and this is the unfairness of this form of question being raised in this way in this forum—that it does not then go to the next step. (Time expired.)
MR SESELJA: Chief Minister, why, when queried further by the Canberra Times about this expenditure, did you, instead of giving a detailed answer, respond with the bland generic statement, “There have been no cases of credit card fraud or misuse”?
MR STANHOPE: I think that goes to the heart of the issue. I must thank you for reminding me: I guess that is what I have been hinting at, but I did not have that level of recollection of the report or of the incident. If I can now accept what the member has suggested is what I said, that I gave the bland response that there were no cases of fraud or of malfeasance, it goes to the heart of this issue. You have devoted this question time to seeking to create or generate a scandal where none exists. There was some inappropriate, perhaps accidental, use of a credit card by senior ACT officials, a miniscule amount in the context of credit card use itself, which is a miniscule amount in the context of ACT government expenditure.
We are talking here about a few thousand dollars, none of which in the view of the auditor, if the member is to be believed, involved any suggestion of fraud or
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