Page 2661 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 23 June 2009
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I see Mr Hargreaves is waiting to speak. I look forward to his contribution. Mr Corbell could not quite bring himself to do it. He tried, he thought about it; he got up a couple of times and sat down. Mr Hargreaves looks keen to go. I think he could show up Mr Corbell when he speaks. I look forward to one of these ministers standing next to the Chief Minister and endorsing his comments, endorsing his veiled threats against the Auditor-General and endorsing his approach of shooting the messenger every time they get a finding which they do not like from the Auditor-General or any other umpire.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (11.53): What the government is proposing to do here is pretty typical of what we in the opposition have come to expect. I have only been in this place for six months or so and I have already worked out what this government’s game is. It is pretty much to minimise anyone talking about their programs. If they do, you threaten to take legal action, you threaten to cut their funding, you threaten in any manner of ways simply to get the point across that the government is not here to be questioned. We are elected by the people of Canberra to do just that. We are elected to come into this place and to hold this government to account.
We have a budget of about $3.7 billion and, as I said last week, when you look at the sorts of companies that have expenditure of $3.7 billion you see the scrutiny that they go through in terms of their shareholders, their auditing and their requirements if they are a publicly listed company. You look at all those checks and balances that a company has to go through—also with the tax office—and you compare that to the scrutiny that we try and give the government. I think the government comes off pretty lightly simply because we do not have the resources to do all that we would like to do, which makes the role of the Auditor-General all the more important. The role of the Auditor-General is to do the things that the people of Canberra would like to see the government doing.
It is interesting that one of the articles in the International journal of government auditing from October 2008, just six months ago—in fact, the month of the election—states:
… enshrining the independence of the auditor general in law does not in itself guarantee that independence. The conference heard about a number of challenges to the independence of auditors general. The first arises from the increasing demands and expectations that auditors general are called upon to meet. Participants agreed on (1) the importance of constantly maintaining professionalism and the quality of their work and (2) dealing with Public Accounts Committees (PAC), government, and other stakeholders in an open but robust way. The second challenge—
and this is the most relevant one—
is securing the resources auditor generals need to discharge their responsibilities fully and effectively. Auditors general have explored different ways of funding their offices, including charging fees for the work they do. Overall, they—
and these are the conference participants at the 20th conference of the commonwealth auditors-general—
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