Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Hansard source

I want to speak on the third reading of the Auditor-General Amendment Bill 2011 for the simple reason that the member for Lyne has negated the effect of his own bill. His bill originally covered three parts. Firstly, it would increase the power of the Auditor-General to chase down government grants to territories and states. Secondly, it would allow the Auditor-General to automatically audit government business enterprises. Thirdly, the most radical aspect was to allow the Auditor-General to audit the private sector firms that do business with the Commonwealth.

If anything demonstrates the lack of independence of the member for Lyne, this bill does so. The member for Lyne has just accepted the government's amendments which negate the effect of his own bill, which was to give greater power to the Auditor-General to chase down grants and moneys given to states and territories and to automatically audit government business enterprises. The government, in the explanatory memorandum to its amendments, said the reason it did not want government business enterprises to be automatically audited by the Auditor-General—and he would have to seek permission which could always be blocked by the government—is that government business enterprises, unlike government agencies where there is an automatic right, were subject to competition. Yet the bill gives an automatic right to the Auditor-General to audit private sector firms, which was never part of his remit before.

We have the nonsensical position where the Auditor-General now has an automatic right to audit private sector firms that do business with the Commonwealth and yet he has no automatic right to audit government business enterprises. It is a ridiculous position that the member for Lyne has allowed. The basis for bringing in his bill in the first place was that a report had been brought down by the Joint Standing Committee on Public Accounts and Audit. The member for Lyne purported to use that as the reason for his bill. He has now gone against that report totally. One of the most important aspects of his bill, and the part that I strenuously supported, related to the automatic right to audit government business enterprises. The reason I argued strongly for that is I well remember when I first came into the parliament—

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