Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

The ANAO did a report on a few councils at the time, and Tiwi was one of the councils. It seems that a theme is emerging as I examine more of these reports. It's not only the agency distributing billions of taxpayer dollars for Indigenous programs which is not following the rules; the recipients of this funding aren't following the rules either. The ANAO found that the Central Land Council was not actively implementing its fraud and corruption plan, was not conducting regular fraud risk assessments and had not kept a register of members' financial assessments.

If you go specifically to the Tiwi Land Council—and this is from the ANAO, which is the Australian National Audit Office—it states in part of the report:

The TLC—

the Tiwi Land Council—

does not have an internal audit function. The TLC has established an Audit Committee which does not execute its mandatory functions effectively. The Audit Committee does not appropriately review the TLC's performance reporting; system of risk oversight and management; and system of internal control. The Audit Committee's mandatory reporting requirements were partly met.

It says:

While there is a risk management policy, the risk register is not complete or up to date. In terms of the policy framework, some essential policies do not exist. Of those that exist, several need to be improved and all need to be appropriately authorised. There is a lack of training on policies. The TLC has commenced a program of improvement of its policy framework.

…   …   …

The TLC does not have effective arrangements to support the integrity of its operations. The TLC is not compliant with the Commonwealth fraud rule. There are no regular fraud risk assessments, there is a lack of fraud training for staff, and there is no mechanism for reporting of incidents of fraud or suspected fraud. The TLC's management of conflicts of interest is ineffective. There is no register of interests for senior employees. A register of pecuniary interests required under the ALRA is not used by all Council members, and there is no management plan for declared pecuniary interests. Conflict of interest management during meetings, as recorded in minutes, is inconsistent.

This is a report that has been handed down, as I said. It continues:

The TLC 2021-2025 Corporate Plan complied with most of the PGPA Rule requirements. The primary weakness was in performance measures and targets, which were not clearly defined and were too focused on activities at the expense of outputs and outcomes. This impedes understanding of the TLC's performance against its key purposes. The draft 2021-22 Annual Report was untimely and was in draft form at March 2023. Council members and the accountable authority were not substantively involved in the development of the Corporate Plan and Annual Report. There is a lack of assurance over performance reporting.

I've had a look through their financial statements here, ending 30 June 2022. The population of the Tiwi Islands is 2,744 people. The total employee cost is $6,144,462. The council allowance expenses—just their allowance expenses—total $222,925. They've got income investments of $4. Have a look at what they've spent the money on. I think there's another $1½ million in grants that were given to them. If you look at some of these grants, there's over $800,000, nearly $900,000, for night patrol. You've got batteries and installation of a security alarm system for $843,533. You've got upgrader batteries. There was one for the year before for $25,000, and this one is for $36,542. The total grant liabilities total $2,816. My whole issue over this whole lot, as the ANAO report says, is that there's not really enough accountability. This'll be the Voice on steroids if we allow this to go unchecked.