Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes:

(a) the importance of the Auditor-General, who is responsible for auditing Commonwealth entities and reporting to the Parliament, providing crucial accountability and transparency regarding Government administration, and scrutiny of the expenditure of public monies;

(b) that as an independent officer of the Parliament with responsibilities under the Auditor-General Act 1997, the Auditor-General reports not to a minister, but directly to the Parliament via the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit;

(c) that unlike similar entities such as the Parliamentary Budget Office, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) sits within the Prime Minister and Cabinet portfolio, and the Prime Minister is responsible for administering the legislation and presenting budget bids for the ANAO, which is also subject to directions from the Minister for Finance as an entity under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013; and

(d) the potential conflicts inherent in these arrangements, given the Auditor-General exists to scrutinise the performance and actions of the executive;

(2) declares that independent scrutiny of Government spending to get maximum value for every taxpayer dollar is more important now than ever, given:

(a) the Government is racking up one trillion dollars in debt;

(b) Australia's budget deficit is now at a record high; and

(c) Government spending has blown out to the highest percentage of gross domestic product since 1970, the earliest year that records are available in the budget papers;

(3) further notes that:

(a) the ANAO's budget has been in structural deficit for years because of this Government's cuts, recording unsustainable operating losses of $3million in 2018-19 and $4million in 2019 20;

(b) the Auditor-General wrote to the Prime Minister prior to the 2020-21 Budget requesting $6million in new funding so he could continue to undertake his role, related to the accumulated budget pressures and COVID-19 cost pressures; and

(c) without new funding the Auditor-General is forced to reduce his program of performance audits which is projected to fall rapidly below the longstanding target of 48 performance audits per annum to around 38 per annum;

(4) condemns the Government for its ongoing efforts to hide rorts, waste and corruption from scrutiny and avoid accountability by:

(a) taking revenge on the Auditor-General and making further cuts to the ANAO's budget and staffing, with a $1million cut to revenue, a reduction in resources of $14 million in 2020-21 and a reduction in the average staffing level allocation; and

(b) failing for years to introduce a National Integrity Commission; and

(5) calls on the Government to:

(a) immediately reverse its cuts to the ANAO's budget and provide the Auditor-General with the funds he has requested, by having the Minister for Finance provide an immediate advance, and making a commitment to boost funding over the forward estimates in the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook;

(b) apologise for the Prime Minister's failure to protect and support the independent Auditor General, as the Prime Minister has proven that he cannot be trusted to protect the integrity of the office;

(c) consider introducing legislation to remove the ANAO from the Prime Minister and Cabinet portfolio and establish the ANAO as a parliamentary department, cementing the Auditor General as a truly independent officer of the Parliament; and

(d) stop stalling and introduce legislation to establish a National Integrity Commission.

NAIDOC Week was held from 8 to 15 November, having been moved this year because of COVID-19 from its usual July timeslot. NAIDOC Week celebrates the history, culture and traditions of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It traces its history to the Aboriginal activist movements of the 1920s and 1930s led by the remarkable Yorta Yorta leader, William Cooper. When I think of that generation and the generation that followed of Yorta Yorta leaders, what a magnificent group of people they were whether it was Cooper himself, Sir Douglas Nicholls or, in more recent times, Burnum Burnum, they did so much to bring to the public's attention the issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

William Cooper, in particular, is noted for his petitioning of government through various petitions and his most famous petition of King George where he asked for recognition of Aboriginal people. We can trace some of the current debates we're having about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander recognition to the work of William Cooper.

Cooper was among other things a man of Christian faith, and it was churches that first took part in National Aborigines Day, which today we observe as NAIDOC Week. Dr Meredith Lake in her The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History quotes Cooper's letter to Prime Minister Lyons. Drawing on his Christian heritage, he asked:

Are you prepared to admit that, since the Creator said in his Word that all men are of 'one blood' we are humans with feelings like yourselves in the eyes of Almighty God, that we can have joys and our sorrows, our likes and our dislikes, that we can feel pain, degradation, and humiliation just as you do?

Although Cooper was a Christian, one of the reasons that I particularly acknowledge his memory and honour is because of the extraordinary thing he did in 1938 at the time of the Kristallnacht incidents in Germany where Nazis came around and smashed up the shops, synagogues and homes of Jewish people. William Cooper led one of the very few protests against Kristallnacht anywhere. At a time when his own people were facing their absolute nadir, there was a view in the 1930s that the Aboriginal population in Australia was in terminal decline. Despite all of the problems his own people faced, the fact that he took this remarkable action in standing up for others who were persecuted around the world makes him a truly remarkable human being. I was pleased to represent the Minister for Indigenous Australians last year at a Jewish community event in December to commemorate 81 years since the protests that Cooper led in relation to Kristallnacht.

NAIDOC Week is a time that we should reflect on remarkable Indigenous Australians. Having mentioned Cooper, I want to mention another remarkable Indigenous Australian, who was born 100 years ago this year, somebody who, during NAIDOC Week, I had cause to think about, because we stood for the Remembrance Day ceremonies in the Reg Saunders courtyard over at the Australian War Memorial. Reg Saunders was born in 1920 in Framlingham reserve in Victoria. His father had served in the First AIF, and Reg went on to be the first commissioned officer of Aboriginal background in the ADF. That's a point of history and knowledge that many Australians will know. What most people probably won't know is what a remarkable war service he actually had. He enlisted almost at the start of the war and served initially in the Middle East, in Libya, and then took part in the Battle of Greece and the Battle of Crete. I want to read something from the Dictionary of Biography about his exploits in Crete:

On 26 May—

1941—

he took part in the bayonet charge at '42nd Street' that temporarily disorganised the enemy. When Allied resistance on the island ceased at the end of the month, the 2/7th Battalion was left behind in the hasty evacuation. Saunders was one of a number of soldiers who refused to surrender. Assisted by sympathetic Cretans, he avoided capture for eleven months. On 7 May 1942 he escaped aboard a trawler to … Libya.

That was an extraordinary act of derring-do that he engaged in. That wasn't the end of his war service. He went on to serve in New Guinea, where he was promoted to captain, and later in Korea, where he served in 3RAR in a major battle against the Chinese and North Korean forces, and his battalion was awarded the US Distinguished Unit Citation.

He had a wonderful sense of humour and was a man much loved by the soldiers he commanded. My favourite story about Reg Saunders was when one officer said, 'Korea is not much of a place for a white man,' and Saunders quipped, 'Well, it's not much of a place for a black man either.' NAIDOC Week is a wonderful occasion for us to remember distinguished Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the contribution they make to our country.

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