Offices of Parliament—Appointment of Auditors

I move, That, pursuant to section 38(1) of the Public Audit Act 2001, this House appoint for the financial years ending on 30 June 2005, 30 June 2006, and 30 June 2007, CST Nexia Audit of Auckland as auditor of the financial statements, accounts, and other information of the Controller and Auditor-General relating to those financial years. This motion answers that old question “Quis custodiet custodies?”; in this case it is CST Nexia Audit.

National is happy to support this motion. For the public to have confidence in the processes and work carried out by the office of the Auditor-General, it is important that all audit processes applied to that office are of the same standard as those applied by the Auditor-General to other public entities. Further, under the Public Audit Act any independent auditor is to exercise the same powers that the Auditor-General has in relation to the audit of public entities. We need an independent auditor who has the capacity to audit financial statements, statements of service performance, legal compliance, waste, and probity issues, and to undertake performance issues. There must be no conflict of interest. The term of an independent auditor should be for a period of 3 years, as indicated in the motion, and what we are approving today is the reappointment of CST Nexia Audit.

It is interesting to note that 3 years ago when this exact appointment took place, on 18 October 2001, the firm then was known as Curran Sole and Tuck. I checked with the Auditor-General’s office to make sure that we were talking about the same firm. I note that “CST” are the initials of the original name of the firm proposed to undertake the appointment. So we are dealing with the same firm. I wanted to check that we were, in fact, dealing with the same company.

National is very happy to support this resolution. We look forward to the same performance being provided over the next 3 years by this company.

I speak on behalf of New Zealand First in support of this Government notice of motion, which states: “That pursuant to section 38(1) of the Public Audit Act 2001, this House appoint for the financial years ending on 30 June 2005, 30 June 2006, and 30 June 2007, CST Nexia Audit of Auckland as auditor of the financial statements, accounts, and other information of the Controller and Auditor-General …”. I confirm the words of Lindsay Tisch, who spoke before me, by saying that we are happy to support the motion. CST Nexia Audit has done a good job in the last 3 years, and we look forward to it doing a good job in the next 3 years. As a Parliament, we need to ensure that there is total integrity in the system and an absolute willingness by all parties to make sure that this is a transparent and good process, so that at the end of the day all New Zealanders are served well and with the utmost honesty and integrity. We do support this notice of motion and the reappointment of the auditor.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 5.33 p.m.