Public Finance and Audit (Auditor-General's Reports) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 16 November 2017.)

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (10:47): I rise to support the Public Finance and Audit (Auditor-General's Reports) Amendment Bill. Essentially, what we are seeking to do here is give voice to what the Auditor-General outlined in his annual report that was handed down only a few weeks ago. What many members of the house may not realise is that on 17 October, on the Tuesday that the Auditor-General's Report was handed down, the Economic and Finance Committee saw fit, after having received the report at 2.30 in the afternoon, that, at 8 o'clock the next morning, we were to question the Auditor-General on his 3,000-page report. We did not have as much time as we are normally given to be able to apply scrutiny to the report and to ask him questions about it.

We did have a look, very closely, in those intervening 16 hours to understand the intent of what the Auditor-General was trying to achieve. He was trying to achieve two things: first off, he wanted to have greater flexibility because he believes that currently, when he publishes or undertakes supplementary reports, those reports have to in some way build upon the work that is undertaken in the annual report. There can be scenarios whereby an incident happens in July/August but it will not appear in the annual report until the year after, delaying his ability to provide his answers to what he sees as either proper process or improper process.

The second thing that he wanted was to be able to table reports whilst parliament is not sitting, something that has existed under the Adelaide Oval redevelopment process where he tabled reports in line with the reporting structure that parliament set out when the original legislation was debated and passed. We have sought through this bill to give voice and put through the parliament what the Auditor-General was trying to achieve.

As this is potentially the last sitting Thursday of this house, and not having passed the other house, this bill may not see the light of day in the Legislative Council. Running parallel to that, the other place has seen fit to use a motion in their house that will give the Auditor-General the opportunity to table reports whilst parliament is not sitting. This is something that we still potentially need to deal with on a more permanent basis, but we have managed to stave off the crisis at this moment.

But it is interesting because the government has said very, very little about the Auditor-General's request for legislative change. When we questioned the Auditor-General when he appeared before the Economic and Finance Committee, we said, 'Have you put these recommendations to the government?' The answer was yes. We said, 'Okay, what was their response?' He said, 'We haven't had a formal response, but what we did is put it into the government's simplify process.' There is a process by which all agencies get to submit ideas for red-tape reduction to the minister's office. It then gets considered, taken out to a range of stakeholders and then is culminated in the simplify bill, which I think is currently in the other house.

The Auditor-General said that he put these recommendations and proposed amendments to that simplify process. When I asked him, 'Did you get your homework in on time?' he said, 'Yes, we did.' I said, 'What sort of response did you receive from the government?' He said, 'Nothing formally, but we do note with interest that it did not form part of the legislative amendments proposed in the simplify bill.'

So it is very clear to the Auditor-General and very clear to us that by the government choosing not to act through that simplify process, they have chosen to ignore and not accept the legislative amendments that the Auditor-General has sought to put forward. That is an extremely sad day, because the only conclusion that we on this side of the chamber can come to is that the government has something to hide. The Auditor-General writes reports. Those reports are tabled at some point in time. The only reason that you would not want a report tabled whilst parliament is not sitting is that you would seek to delay the publishing of that report for a period of time.

It just so happens that we are coming into a period where we will not sit again until at least April next year. We know that the Auditor-General is undertaking a significant number of supplementary reports. We had four tabled this week, but there are still more to come. There is still a report to be tabled about the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. There are still reports to be tabled about other matters, both local government and state government, that the Auditor-General is looking into. So the real question for the government to answer here is: what have they got to hide? What is contained within that NRAH report that is so embarrassing that they have sought to make sure that it is not published before the election?

We know that this is a piece of infrastructure that has blown out by about $650 million. We know that there have been huge issues in relation to disputes between the consortium that is building the hospital and the government. We have heard a lot from industry and from private developers about the sovereign risk that exists in South Australia when a government fails to honour its contracts and that that can have huge implications for future private investment and future public-private partnerships in this state.

In fact, some have suggested that the government's actions in relation to the NRAH mean that there are very few developers who will actually enter into a PPP with the government into the future, thereby starving the people of South Australia of much-needed private investment, private capital, flowing into our state. So what is it in this NRAH report that the government has to hide?

We are lucky that the Legislative Council has found for us a process by which the Auditor-General can report. According to the process that he told us he is currently undertaking, he has now tabled a report in relation to the Festival Plaza and the huge concerns he has had with the process in relation to that contract. He has made some extremely damning findings in relation to the One Community grant, and the Labor government is still refusing to give the money back. The government needs to watch out because we have put on paper a piece of legislation that will force the government to pay back money such as this. They really need to be careful about the way in which they are continuing to operate, spending half a million bucks a week on advertising in the lead-up to the state election.

We know that he has put down reports in relation to disaster relief planning. The scariest part of the report that I found was that SAFECOM itself, which is the board and overarching group tasked with keeping South Australians safe in emergencies, does not even have a disaster management and recovery plan. It does not have a disaster recovery plan. That is just scary. It comes off the back of failures of the Alert SA app, it comes off the back of failure on the progress of recommendations made by the Burns review, and comes after we had a report leaked to us about the staggering lack of preparedness by the SES and their state control centre. It is only a matter of time before we see the state control centre fail during a major emergency.

We wait with interest to see what is contained within the NRAH report of the Auditor-General when it is tabled in the coming months. We look forward to prosecuting that argument, in the interests of all South Australians, who deserve to know exactly how it is that the largest piece of infrastructure we have ever built has gone so badly wrong, and to make sure that we hold to account those who have made these mistakes.

In closing, can I say that I support the bill. I support the work of the member for Bragg in bringing this piece of legislation to this place. I look forward to the Auditor-General being able to continue to undertake his work unfettered and free from political interference so that we can hold all governments to account when they spend taxpayer money.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland) (10:56): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

The house divided on the motion:

Ayes 23

Noes 18

Majority 5

Motion thus carried; debate adjourned.