Page 3915 - Week 12 - Thursday, 29 October 2015

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video


would like to thank Mr Smyth for his excellent chairmanship of the committee, and for keeping us on track when there was a range of other inquiries going on at the same time, and I thank my fellow members of the committee, Ms Porter and Ms Fitzharris, who operated in a very collegiate and collaborative manner. It was a pleasure to be involved in that inquiry. The secretariat—Andrea Cullen, Kate Harkin, Greg Hall and Lydia Chung—as always, provided excellent support to the committee.

The management of funding for community services enables important work to go on in our community. Whilst the inquiry was not necessarily what the community sector may have been expecting from the title of the Auditor-General’s report, it potentially allows the opportunity for a different Auditor-General’s inquiry at another time, if that is what members of the community sector feel is very important.

Members of the Assembly are always able to recommend inquiries to the Auditor-General. Perhaps that is something that the Auditor-General will look at in the future—whether it is through using the follow-the-money powers that the Auditor-General recently received or through the usual performance audit process.

I reiterate that it is pleasing to see the Auditor-General found that, generally speaking, those three government departments enabled the provision of funding to community services in an effective way.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Public Accounts—Standing Committee

Report 19

MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (5.36): I present the following report:

Public Accounts—Standing Committee—Report 19—Review of Auditor-General’s Report No. 4 of 2014: Gastroenterology and Hepatology Unit, Canberra Hospital, dated October 2015, together with a copy of the extracts of the relevant minutes of proceedings.

I move:

That the report be noted.

As members would know, the Auditor-General has a performance audit program that she sets each year. It is reported to the Assembly. It is done in consultation with the public accounts committee. Because of changes to the Auditor-General Act, it is now organised through the office of the Speaker. The performance audits that are undertaken are done by the program established by the Auditor-General by referrals from PAC, by referrals from the Assembly, or, in the case of this report, it came about from a public interest disclosure.

The public interest disclosure in this case alleged “prolonged maladministration of outpatient services provided by the GEHU since 2012” and was made to the Auditor-General on 27 September 2013. The PID was referred to the Director-General


Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video