Financial Review Debate — Office of the Auditor-General

I rise on behalf of the ACT party to discuss the financial review of the Auditor-General. I realise it is a report that Parliament does not often comment on, because the Auditor-General is a sort of independent officer, and one would like to think the office is not party political. But we as parliamentarians also have to ask who guards the guardian, and ask whether the Auditor-General is serving us well. The Government may decide that this review is in some way a defence of its position. But if we look at one piece of financial expenditure, for the wānanga, which has managed to spend a quarter of a billion dollars this year—that is more than any other university—we have to ask how that came about and whether the Auditor-General drew it to the attention of Ministers. As far as I can tell, the Auditor-General did not do that, but if we are to accept, and, of course, we must, the words of Ministers, we can see that they drew it to the attention of the Auditor-General some time ago—at least last year, and possibly earlier.

I am concerned because I have been told by the Hon Ken Shirley, who has been following this matter very seriously, that when he took documents to the Auditor-General he got the impression from that office that it was not very interested. We now find that the office is doing a report, and that it is not due until next year. The wānanga has received $232 million, and the Auditor-General thinks it is satisfactory to give a report next year.

In fairness to Ministers, they are waiting for the Auditor-General. A huge amount of money will be spent before we know whether that is good or bad. Further than that, the Auditor-General has set out some terms of reference. One matter that I understand he is not prepared to look at is whether enrolments are genuine. To give the Committee a simple example, I was told by Ken Shirley, who is now associated with the matter, that he was at the Easter show on the weekend, and that people—not one person, but a number of people—came up to him and said they thought that what he was raising about the wānanga was very interesting, and that they had received in the mail a certificate from the wānanga for a course they never attended.

The Auditor-General has told Mr Shirley that he will not look at that. If more than one person at just one show came up to Mr Shirley, that indicates that there have been a large number of bogus enrolments.

I then read in the Sunday newspaper that that organisation, even though it is supposed to be under investigation, is now starting an English language course. People might think that perhaps that is a good thing, but, after one has done it, it will be discovered that the course is not certified and that no Government authority states that the course meets any standards at all. When we examine it further, we discover that those students will somehow learn to speak English without having contact time with a person who can speak English. I would love to see how that can be done. But we will never know that, because, apparently, nobody is auditing the course. The Government’s education certifiers are not certifying it, and, again, the Auditor-General is, apparently, not looking into the matter. That is not satisfactory. I would like to know from the Speaker whether she will take the matter up with the Auditor-General.

Let us imagine the situation if it were a private company that one had a problem with. The Office of the Auditor-General has said that it will not look at the question of fraud, even though it is obvious that there have been hundreds of fraudulent enrolments. It is not going to look at the fact that there is now a course that is apparently valueless but is still costing millions of dollars to the taxpayer. And, by the way, we will not have a result until after the election. Perhaps, and this may be a bit unfair of me, the Government may think that that is rather good, because between now and when the Auditor-General’s report comes out, there will be an election.

I think it would be extremely unfortunate if we now had an Auditor-General who took that sort of matter on board. That would be a very serious criticism, and I am not prepared to make that, but I am prepared to say that this situation is not satisfactory. The funding for the wānanga has gone from $4 million to $230 million in 4 years. The Auditor-General has asked for, and been given, the power to look at these sorts of matters, and we would like to know what progress he is making.

Report noted.

Office of the Ombudsmen