Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, I present the report of the committee, Review of Auditor-General’s reports tabled between August 2007 and August 2008, and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I seek leave to incorporate a tabling statement in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statement read as follows—

The Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, as prescribed by the Public Accounts and Audit Committee Act 1951, examines all reports of the Auditor-General, and reports the results of the Committee’s deliberations to the Parliament.

This report details the findings of the Committee’s examination of five performance audits tabled in 2007 and 2008. These five reports were selected for further scrutiny from the fifty-four audit reports presented to the Parliament between 7 August 2007 and 26 August 2008.

As usual, these reports cover a range of agencies and highlight a number of areas of concern. Two themes which repeatedly recur are the need to document processes and procedures to better understand and manage risk and the need for staff training to ensure more effective and efficient use of existing systems.

The Committee reviewed an Audit Report assessing how four departments are implementing the change to a whole-of-government approach to the delivery of Indigenous services. While the Committee was satisfied overall with the progress being made we feel that the process can be improved. Accordingly we recommend that the risks and challenges identified be documented and that staff training programs be developed to increase awareness of these risks. Further, the Committee would like to see an action plan developed and published to track improvements in Indigenous life expectancy.

As a result of the investigation into the Australian Government’s two natural resource management programs, we have identified the need for a clear set of procedures to ensure State and Territory compliance with bilateral agreements. The Committee acknowledges the difficulties inherent in operating these diverse programs but is concerned with ongoing and recurring problems in monitoring and reporting. We are therefore requesting a progress report from the relevant departments detailing implementation of both the ANAO and Committee recommendations.

The Committee reviewed the completeness and reliability of the estimates reported in the Taxation Expenditure Statement 2006. To improve the quality of the Tax Expenditure Statement, we recommend that Treasury include two additional pieces of information: calculations regarding the twenty largest tax expenditures using both the revenue foregone and revenue gained methods to allow comparison with the Budget Papers, and information on the extent to which tax expenditure reporting has improved through the receipt of reliable data from other agencies. We also suggest that Treasury investigate the Canadian model of taxation expenditure reporting to determine if it provides a more complete picture for public and Parliamentary scrutiny.

In this batch of reports, we followed up on the previous examination of Centrelink’s management of customer debt undertaken in 2004-05. We were pleased to see that the Audit Report found that Centrelink had successfully implemented the majority of the recommendations from both the previous ANAO report and the subsequent JCPAA inquiry. However, there are still inconsistencies across the network and the Committee recommends that Centrelink identify regions that have been particularly successful in managing debt, examine their processes and implement best practice methods across the network. Of primary concern to the Committee was Centrelink’s ageing debt base. We have asked Centrelink to conduct a review to determine the reasons why the debt base continues to age and report back to the Committee.

Finally the Committee looked at the Audit Report assessing the regulatory function of the Australian Communications and Media Authority under the Australian Communications and Media Authority Act 2005. We found that ACMA’s complaint handling process is ad hoc and unsystematic and recommend that ACMA reform its complaint handling processes to ensure a more efficient and faster handling of complaints. We urge ACMA to complete development of a complaints handling manual and recommend the introduction of a formal training program for all staff handling complaints which would incorporate effective use of the ACMA Information Management System database.

I would like to acknowledge the valuable work of the Auditor-General and the staff at the Australian National Audit Office. We look forward to continuing reviews of the Auditor-General’s reports.

Mr President, I commend the Report to the Senate.

Question agreed to.