Auditor-General's Supplementary Reports

Adjourned debate on motion of the Hon. R.I. Lucas:

That on the prorogation of the present parliament, should the Auditor-General deliver to the President any supplementary report emanating from the Office of the Auditor-General, the report is deemed to be laid upon the table of the Legislative Council and the President is hereby authorised, upon the presentation of that report to the President, to publish and distribute that report.

(Continued from 1 November 2017.)

The Hon. S.G. WADE (20:26): I rise very briefly to endorse the motion put forward by the Hon. R.I. Lucas, and put it particularly in the context of issues that are of current concern in my portfolio, that being health. As the Hon. R.I. Lucas highlighted in his speech when moving this motion on 1 November, the issues that the motion addresses were raised in the Auditor-General's Annual Report earlier this year. The Auditor-General highlighted that reports prepared by the Auditor-General must be delivered to the President of the Legislative Council and Speaker of the House of Assembly and then tabled on the next parliamentary sitting day.

He suggested that the availability of the reports is restricted by limitations in the parliamentary sitting days. For example, in the last election year the Auditor-General was unable to table a report between the last sitting day, being 28 November 2013, and the first time the next parliament sat on 6 May 2014. The Auditor-General has indicated that he has previously expressed his view to the government that his report should be able to be tabled out of session, and in fact had suggested changes to legislation that the government was considering in what I understand is called the simplified process to facilitate that.

If we support the Hon. R.I. Lucas's motion, which I strongly urge the council to do, when the parliament is prorogued, if the Auditor-General's reports are presented to the President of the Legislative Council, they could be made public soon afterwards. The two reports that I would particularly like to highlight are the reports that the Auditor-General has indicated he is currently undertaking.

In his Annual Report, Part A, Executive summary, pages 1 and 27, the Auditor-General has advised the parliament that he is currently working on a supplementary report on the new Royal Adelaide Hospital public/private partnership. This is a $2.3 billion construction, with a life-of-project cost of more than $11 billion.

The massive $600 to $700 million blowout in the cost of the project to the state, plus the 17-month delay, has been an area of acute public concern. My view is that public concern is likely to both increase and broaden over the coming months, particularly as we see the impacts of the government's poor planning process in relation to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.

We have seen that with the tragic situation of the chest clinic, where some of our most vulnerable patients were asked to make a marathon trip of two kilometres from the outpatient clinic opposite the old RAH to pharmacy, radiology and inpatient services at the new RAH. I predict that there is a whole series of issues that will become of acute concern to the community in the coming months. The Auditor-General's reports in relation to the Royal Adelaide Hospital project have been some of the most illuminating for both this parliament and for the public. I believe it is fundamental to a full public consideration of the performance of this government that that report be available.

During a recent appearance of the Auditor-General before the House of Assembly's Economic and Finance Committee, the Auditor-General indicated that he had been unable to complete this report because SA Health has not provided requested documents and information in a timely fashion. We are faced with the prospect that the parliament and the public may well be deprived of the opportunity to see this report not only because the sittings of this current parliament are concluding shortly but also because of the failure of the agency itself to provide the documents to the Auditor-General.

If I may, I will quote from the Hansard of the Economic and Finance Committee in the other place. Mr Richardson, the Auditor-General, said to the committee:

We are progressing an audit of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. There have been delays in receiving some documentation for that audit which may impact on its completion date, so that is slightly behind schedule.

He went on to say later in his evidence:

I mentioned that we are doing work on the Royal Adelaide Hospital. In fact, I have just written to the chief executive of Health asking for her attention in trying to speed up access to information. We have had a process, which has been a good process, and I don't feel that the people who have been seeking to assist us are trying to hold us up. They have had some difficulties, though, in meeting our requests for documentation. I do feel the pressure of meeting the reporting obligations that I have to the parliament…

I am not asserting that the bureaucrats in SA Health are deliberately delaying the work of the Auditor-General. I would note that the Auditor-General was sufficiently concerned to actually write to the chief executive. Be that as it may, the Auditor-General's comment that he does feel the pressure of meeting the reporting obligations he has to parliament is, I think, a cleft stick.

The fact of the matter is that if we do not give the Auditor-General the capacity to table reports out of session through providing reports to yourself, sir, as President of the Legislative Council, we put the Auditor-General in a dilemma. Does he or she expedite the report such that it can be available for tabling at an earlier sitting day, and perhaps make a compromise—perhaps compromise is not the word—make an adjustment for the quality of the report?

The Auditor-General has indicated that he feels the pressure of his reporting obligations to parliament, but if we support the motion of the Hon. R.I. Lucas, we take that pressure off. We allow the Auditor-General to complete his or her report in a time that suits the Auditor-General, knowing that he or she will be able to make that report available to the public at a time of their choosing. I think that the situation in Health highlights the wisdom of the motion of the Hon. R.I. Lucas, and I would urge the council to support it.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (20:34): I, too, believe that this motion makes a lot of sense; in fact, it surprised me that we do not have a standing order or a sessional order of any type that allows for out-of-session tabling of reports from oversight bodies such as the Auditor-General. It makes sense to me that, just because the parliament stops sitting for five months around the time of the election, that does not mean there are not other people doing important work. I support the idea presented in this motion that, if the Auditor-General provides something to the President, it can be distributed.

I do have a question of the mover. The wording of the motion is that it is on the prorogation of the parliament. It seems to me that the Auditor-General could provide a report between the end of November, when this current session will effectively stop sitting, and the prorogation, or may in fact have a report that is after prorogation but before parliament sits again. There are two distinct periods.

Parliament was prorogued, in relation to the last election, on 15 February. My understanding is that what will happen when we finally finish our work this year is that a date for resumption sometime in February will probably be set, and then before that date is reached the Executive Council will go to the Governor and parliament will be prorogued.

I guess what I would like the Hon. Rob Lucas to satisfy us on is, firstly, if the Auditor-General provides a report between, say, 1 December and let us say 15 February, that that would be covered by the motion and, secondly, if the Auditor-General had a report from, say, 15 February until parliament resumes again in the first week in May, for example, that that would also be covered. I want to make sure that any Auditor-General's report between when we stop sitting and when parliament resumes in, I presume, May will be covered.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (20:37): I thank members for their contributions and indications of support for the important motion before us. I am disappointed that no member of the government has indicated support for the motion, but the indications of support from the crossbenchers are sufficient to see the passage of the motion.

In relation to the questions raised by the Hon. Mr Parnell, my advice is that the terms of this resolution are exactly the same as the one or two previous precedents in relation to this issue: that is, in the period leading up to an election, prorogation does not occur on that date in February but occurs soon after the parliament concludes its work and the bills are assented to. That is certainly the advice I have received in relation to previous elections.

The situation, and the advice I have been provided with, is that generally just before the election period itself starts, which is that date in mid to late February, given that the election is 17 March, there is the dissolution of the houses and, once the houses have dissolved, it is just physically impossible to be able to present reports. I think the date to which the member is referring is closer to the date when the houses are dissolved and it is just not possible to provide the opportunity for the Auditor-General to present reports, so that covers the period from February through to May, the period that the member is talking about.

My advice is that there is technically a short window of opportunity. If 1 December was the last sitting day and the bills that we passed were not assented to until a week or 10 days later before the parliament was actually prorogued, if the Auditor-General presented something then, there might be an argument that the Legislative Council President might say, 'Technically, that did not occur.'

I would have thought that in those circumstances the Auditor-General may well delay the presentation, if the President was going to interpret it in that particular way. He might delay the presentation of the report until 15 December, or whatever it might be, so that it is clearly within the terms of the period covered by this particular motion. It would be entirely possible for him to present it again, if he wanted to, if the Legislative Council President said, 'I am interpreting this as being before the prorogation by one day and, therefore, I do not have to make it public.'

I think it would be an interesting public debate, if the Auditor-General indicated that he had presented it one day prior to the prorogation and the Legislative Council President had decided he was not going to release the supplementary report into the NRAH on that technicality. Good luck to the President and the government of the day on sustaining that particular argument. In those circumstances, a sensible auditor-general would just present it again a day after the prorogation of parliament, but it may well be he leaves them, having read this resolution, until the parliament is prorogued and before that date in February, and any report that becomes available he will present to the Legislative Council President.

That is the best of my advice, the Hon. Mr Parnell. Given the good sense of the Auditor-General and, I am sure, the willingness of the Legislative Council President to comply with the wishes and intentions of the Legislative Council, I think any report that is completed within this general time frame that we are talking about would be made public as part of being transparent and accountable. With that, I thank members, with the exception of the government members, for their indication of support for the important motion.

Motion carried.