Bills

Public Finance and Audit (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill

Committee Stage

In committee (resumed on motion).

Clause 13.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: We are very proud of the amendments that are being proposed in the amending bill. As I said before, I do acknowledge and appreciate the opposition's indication of support. Just so we are very clear about the reason why we are accepting the Auditor-General's recommendation, in respect of the—

Ms BEDFORD: Point of order. I indicated to the table that I had a question. I am wondering why we are already moving on.

The CHAIR: My apologies; we are still in committee. The member for Florey has a question.

Ms BEDFORD: I have a couple of questions actually, sir.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Can I just finish what I am saying?

The CHAIR: Excuse me, members, the Chair wishes to speak. My understanding, and my advice from the desk, is that the Attorney was partway through an answer to a question, which is what she is completing now. Please continue, thank you. We will come to the question shortly.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: When the Auditor-General put to us that he was looking for some amendments and updating of the language in the bill, not only to contemporise what was actually happening in the Auditor-General's office but also to be compliant with our Australian and New Zealand accounting standards, that was essentially to add in the provision for effectiveness within the matters to be considered. When one looks at examples of what he has been doing, he makes it very clear.

For example, in a recent report from last year, the Plaza Development Supplementary Report, he makes a number of recommendations about the process that was undertaken, the diversion through cabinet and the lack of production of documents in respect of the contractual negotiations that were asked for and not provided. He makes the observation that work started in 2015 but that the contract ultimately was not signed until 2016. In doing so, he makes a number of recommendations about how this can more effectively be done and what needs to occur for there to be economic and effective processes of government.

In respect of the supplementary report, under clause 13 it would be able to be tabled in parliament, made immediately available and published online. That is an initiative which has been brought to our attention by the Auditor-General. He reaffirmed that in his evidence to the Economic and Finance Committee on 18 October 2017. We introduced the bill and, of course, it fell on the deaf ears of the then government; nevertheless, we are back here and we thank the opposition for now supporting it.

Ms BEDFORD: As we broke for lunch, the Attorney was talking about the fact that she used to read these things in the paper at Christmas. That, of course, is one of the points of concern that I would have. If the Auditor-General chooses to publish such a report at Christmas or whenever, how am I to know about that if, for some reason, I am not in the country and there is something in this report that I may be interested in knowing? Is there going to be any mechanism by which members of parliament will know these things are going to happen? That is something that could be easily remedied, you would think, to hopefully stop surprises of that kind in the morning newspaper.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I am advised, member for Florey, that it is proposed that the actual process of notice will be worked out with the Clerk, but the provision is therefore one clear day's notice. What has happened in the past is not that I have read these reports on Christmas Day. I used that in a slightly different example about when it might be made available. As I understand the current process, when reports are tabled out of session—and from time to time we have moved motions to enable that to happen—I do not know about the member for Florey, but I have received a letter from the Speaker advising me that a report has been received and either will be made available in the pigeonhole or sent to us.

From time to time, I have had correspondence with the then Speaker asking me if I had received this report yet, etc. That is how it is operated at present. You do not know whether the Auditor-General has even finished his printed report and presented it to the parliament until we get back to parliament, unless you make that inquiry or unless there has already been a motion in the parliament to be able to publish out of time or, as I said, they are in the statutory provisions for something such as the Auditor's Adelaide Oval quarterly reports.

My understanding is that there would be an expectation that, if it is sent in to the Speaker and the President, the clerks would receive it. Under these rules, they will be able to give notice of its distribution and they would presumably email members—but this is something they are working out—to advise them that a report is now available and that it is online at www, etc. I do not want to pre-empt what they are discussing, but they have allowed a day in our rules to facilitate whatever process they will follow.

So, yes, you may get an email on Christmas Day because we have a very hardworking Clerk. I am sure, if he received an email on Christmas Eve, he would rush home from his shopping and buying his wife a lovely present for Christmas to make sure that we got our emails telling us that a quarterly report or a supplementary report—now to be called an 'other report'—is ready for us to view.

Ms BEDFORD: There is quite a difference between 'they may' or 'they must'. If the Speaker chooses to send a letter to me here at Parliament House rather than to my electorate office, I will not get it. I still think that as members of parliament we need to have some sort of reassurance that we will know something is about to drop before it drops. I think the last thing that you said is really important. Am I correct in thinking that neither MPs nor presiding officers will receive supplementary reports and that they can be considered annexures by the Auditor-General if he or she so chooses and, hence, the only way that we going to get anything is if it is published online?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Perhaps I was not clear in explaining this almost exact question from the member for Lee. We are going to have an annual report, which is currently about seven or eight volumes, which will be condensed down to the annual report and the summaries of agencies, and there is also an executive summary. For all the very large printed financial accounts of each of the agencies, which will not be just the 70 we currently deal with but 150, all their financials will be uploaded.

The supplementary reports, as we now know them, which are the extra ones during the year, are to be known as 'other reports', and they may have annexures to them. So for the 'other report' on the plaza development, for example, if that were coming through today, it would not be necessary for the Auditor-General to add all the annexures to that report, which might include contracts, notices or protocols and things; he might put them all online. He will have the right to do that. He will give us the report saying that he has investigated a transaction or a particular aspect and refer to it. He will have the capacity to put the annexed documents online and to refer to them for people who want the extra detail. So the annual report plus report on specific entities and/or extra investigations, and then the support documents will all be put online.

I will just remind the member for Florey, while I am sure she is well aware, that the Ombudsman, for example, regularly uploads online reports that he has concluded. Unless one has been a party to the matter under investigation, there is no advanced notice of when these integrity bodies are going to publish their reports. It is similar to the Office for Public Integrity, whereby the commissioner sometimes makes public announcements that he is going to deliver reports on a certain date, for example, but we do not as a parliament have any control over that.

At the moment, what happens in the Auditor-General's scenario, which is what we are trying to remedy, is that when these reports come down they might be received by the parliament in December or January, when people might expect to be on leave. Instead of waiting for the Speaker, if he has the capacity to do so at the time, to approve their publication earlier and put them in our pigeonholes, the Clerk will be able to email us, advise us that a report is about to be released and that it will be released online. You do not have to come back from a beach holiday or stop eating Christmas pudding; you can just www and read it all.

That is the way I understand the new practice will work, but I am not party to that. I think the Auditor-General and the clerks are going to work that out, but we as a parliament do not control when the Auditor-General finishes his supplementary reports (or 'other reports' as they are now called) and we do not receive prior notice of them. They just come, and the Speaker and President table them in our respective houses. Out of session, we might think, 'The Auditor-General said he's going to be doing some extra reports—they used to be called 'supplementary reports' and now they will be called 'other reports'—so I might just keep an eye out for those.'

I am sure you could email the Clerk to inquire whether anything has come in, but essentially he would be working out a process whereby he can email members to say that, if they are interested in this matter, the Auditor-General has provided a copy of this report and it will be made available as at 9am 24 hours hence. That is how I understand it, and I am getting a big nod from the adviser.

Ms BEDFORD: I am glad they are nodding; that is good. I suppose my problem with this is that the Auditor-General is responsible to parliament, in which case we need to know what is going on, and we might not actually know what is going on. That is my concern. I would like to be in the position where I know that a report is coming, rather than find out three weeks later.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I hear what the member says, and I will use an example. Under the Adelaide Oval quarterly reports, a printed quarterly report used to be put in our pigeonholes. I would look forward to having a quick read of it every quarter to see how things were going. Usually, when I was reading the hard copy of the report, it had already been published and had a process of publication, and I would read about it in articles in The Advertiser saying, 'Adelaide Oval had a blowout of $3 million,' or whatever the issue that had been picked up by the Auditor-General in the report. This was before I actually had the original because it had been tabled out of session.

That is why, as I understand it, the practicalities of introducing this system where we can get it quickly is that we know about it. So this 24 hours has been allowed from the time it is received until the time it is published online for Daniel Wills or Lauren Novak to read it. We will receive some kind of correspondence (I am assuming an email) to let us know, 'This report has come in. If you're interested, it is on www.' Obviously we can access that much more quickly and contemporaneously, and have a chance to see what it says.

Mr MULLIGHAN: I appreciate both the question from the member for Florey and the answer from the Deputy Premier. In prefacing my question, I summarise the concern that, while there should be a more timely publication of reports which are made to the presiding officers so that the parliament and the public can be furnished with that information quickly and more readily, which as you can imagine is important in the first quarter of every fourth year, I understand the member for Florey's concerns. I now have a growing concern that there will be no way for members of parliament to understand whether something is published.

I appreciate the examples that the Deputy Premier gives about the Ombudsman and ICAC but, as I did over the last two minutes, it takes only a very quick look at the three respective agencies' websites to see that the Ombudsman and the ICAC are given to issuing press releases and media statements about their reports and findings. That is not the case for the Auditor-General. That means that members of parliament and, probably, members of the media might not be checking this sort of site as regularly as they might other things—for example, the Government Gazette—and that this sort of thing can fall by the wayside in terms of garnering the attention of members of parliament.

My question about that matter, and the matter I raised that I was probably driving the Deputy Premier a bit mad with in my insistent questioning—and perhaps I was not understanding her explanation, the fault may not all lie with her—is this: will there be any mechanism developed by the Auditor-General whereby members of parliament, either collectively or individually, can ask or require the Auditor-General to notify them or make full copies of reports available to them if they so desire?

I will just explain that. If a member wanted notification about the publication of a report as it is handed to the presiding members or if, like the Deputy Premier—and, I am loath to admit but admit I must, like me—a member enjoys trawling through the financial statements of agency audit reports, does the Auditor envisage developing some sort of regime where members can ask that those reports be made available to them rather than relying on whether or not they check the website periodically?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: The member asks whether the Auditor-General has any obligation. In short, the answer is no. The Auditor-General reports to the parliament. Each of the houses gets those tabled, usually in the next available sitting days, when they come in. To ensure we get earlier access to reports when they come in when there is a long period of time when the parliament does not sit—it might be weeks, it might be months—this mechanism is being implemented.

At the moment, the only obligation is for the Auditor-General to do his work according to the terms of the Public Finance and Audit Act and then report to the parliament. What we are trying to do with this bill is advance the distribution and publication to members when we are not here. That is basically what we are trying to do.

The member for Florey says, 'How do I know if it just goes on the website?' I think the member for Lee is also saying, 'How do we know? Other agencies issue press releases, the Auditor-General doesn't.' For the benefit of both members I will say this again: under this process, once the Auditor-General has delivered the reports here, the Speaker and/or President and/or Clerk—because we are adding him or her in now to be able to execute this—will have a day before the report goes on the website to alert members of the availability of access to this report going on the website.

The Auditor-General and the Clerk and/or Speaker and/or President have not, to my knowledge, worked out exactly what process is going to happen but my understanding is that, given the 24 hours allowed, there would be some electronic notice to say that the report has been issued on such and such by the Auditor-General and that it is available on such and such a website.

At the moment we have no clue what reports of the Auditor-General are coming into the parliament under this 'other reports' process. They just come to the Speaker and to the President and they get tabled. As I say, we do not have any advance notice of that. Unless you are a party affected by a determination of an ombudsman or an auditor-general, you do not receive preliminary determinations or matters such as that. If you are not involved in that issue at all, you do not have any clue when it is coming. So we just wait for their work to be done.

This is a way for the member for Florey to know. She will get an alert of some kind from the Speaker and/or the Clerk of interim reports coming through. She will be able to access them online. If she would like a hard copy, I am sure that could be made available as well. It is really a matter of enabling the parliament to have its processes sufficiently advanced so that if she has one of those rare holidays, she might be able to read it online while sitting on the beach.

Ms Bedford: In large print.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I will take that on notice to make sure that that is attended to.

The CHAIR: Member for Lee, we will make this your last question on this clause.

Mr MULLIGHAN: The Deputy Premier has repeatedly given the example of the specific requirement of the Adelaide Oval act, which requires the Auditor-General to report six monthly—not quarterly but regularly, more regularly than an annual report—to the parliament. My understanding is that she is correct in the assertion that, even though the house may not be sitting—and I use that example of the first quarter of every fourth year before a state election when the house does not tend to sit—that report is received/published online and is then available for public scrutiny.

I am not quite sure because I have not looked at the Adelaide Oval redevelopment act, but that is somehow quite separate from the regime which we are used to with the animal reports. My understanding of that regime is that we have no process in either place, here or in the council, by which members are advised, 'Just so you know, we've received an interim report or one of the regular reports from the Auditor-General and it's available at such and such.' If we do not have that process now, perhaps at some point that is appropriate in the future the government or the Clerk could provide some advice to members about how that is proposed to be done.

My only question is what, if any, discussions have occurred with the Auditor-General and/or the Clerk to provide the member for Florey and me some comfort that there will be some process? The final bit of context I give around that question is that I suspect the Deputy Premier enjoyed referring back to previous matters that the Auditor-General looked into over the last 15 years and, unfortunately for this parliament and for the new government, I am sure there will be more in the future.

If that was to be published on a website in the middle of summer holidays or at some other point in time when members' and the media's attention is not following this website more closely, there needs to be that process that the Deputy Premier alludes to. What, if any, discussions or arrangements have been canvassed so that we have some comfort that we will be aware of when these reports are published?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I am advised that the Deputy Auditor-General has indicated to our advisers here from Treasury that negotiations are to be still undertaken in relation to working with the clerks of the houses, because they are sort of new in this process as distinct from the Speaker and the President and/or their officers because, obviously, they have a role. I am sure that the Clerk works closely with the Speaker.

They have not yet worked out how the transmission of the information is to go to members. Either it is an alert from a website or it might be a direct email. They have not yet worked out the mechanism by which that will be transmitted. It may be a situation where members actually elect in due course a mode by which they might be informed, but at the moment there is nothing, so they have nothing to read and no knowledge about it.

If we are going to make it earlier, when we are not all sitting in here, then we obviously need to make it as practically accessible as we possibly can, and that is designed to be left up to the clerks and the Auditor-General's office to sort out the process. That is exactly why one clear day has been allowed before it is uploaded.

Just for completion on the issue of other agencies, it is true that the Ombudsman's office and sometimes the Office for Public Integrity issue press releases in relation to matters. Sometimes there has been some controversy or public interest. In fact, with respect to the Office for Public Integrity, sometimes the commissioner himself actually calls a press conference in relation to matters, but that is not universal.

I am sure that the member for Lee would have viewed the Ombudsman's website. There are lots of different reports that his office does. They are published on the website and they do not apparently justify having a media release, and that is fine. I myself have asked the Ombudsman, 'Have you completed this?' or whether he has considered recommending this or that, and he will say, 'Yes, I did that, and we finished it six months ago. It has been on the website.'

So these people continue to do their work, and, quite frankly, it is not adequate for us as members to say that we should be expected to rely just on whatever the media might pick up or not in relation to these matters. It is, I think, the responsibility of all of us to discuss in this negotiated process how it is going to best suit us to get notice of these things, but bear in mind it is either early notice or you wait weeks or months until the parliament resumes, and clearly that is not satisfactory.

We want early advice that direct process of notification to members is still under consideration. If possible, I will ask the Speaker to, as soon as practicable after resolving the process on that, give some advice to the parliament as to how that is going to be effected, or at least where we can read it on the website as to how it is going to be effected. I hope that assists.

Clause passed.

Remaining clause (14) and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General) (16:34): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Mr Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed.