Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I will endorse all of the comments of the chair. It is an important committee. I'll make a few brief remarks to add to the comments made by the chair. The committee has been around for a very long time. I think the Audit Office was established in the very first year of the parliament. The Auditor-General works on behalf of the parliament in scrutinising the executive—a really important, somewhat archaic and at times arcane distinction, but the Auditor-General does work on behalf of the entire parliament in scrutinising expenditure.

It is a bit of a nerdy committee. It's a good one to go on if you actually want to have a magical mystery tour around government, because we have a statutory responsibility to consider every single audit report the Auditor-General puts forward, which covers the whole span of government. It's not for everyone. There's the workload, and some of the material can be dry, but I think the chair's remarks are spot on about the bipartisan tradition of this committee. It does require a bit of compromise and negotiation, and that's no bad thing. I think the general public don't see the work that goes on in committees. Overwhelmingly, but with a few notable exceptions at times, the work in committees is conducted in a respectful, sensible way and most stuff is agreed on—I think as you, when you were not in the chair just a few moments ago, remarked as well, Deputy Speaker Bird.

I thank the chair for those very kind words. I must say, I think that's terrible for our reputations! It's fair to say the chair likes working with me far more in her capacity as chair of the committee than when she's sitting in the Speaker's chair! It is a relationship built on trust as colleagues, and that trust has not been breached; I think that is really important. It's often a less understood part of getting stuff done around here—that you have to be able to shake someone's hand and have it mean something. It's old-fashioned for many.

I also thank the secretary. I made some remarks in last year's tabling statement for the committee that the committee was at that point seriously under-resourced, and I thank the secretary for guiding us through that period. I also thank the assistant clerk for giving the secretary those extra couple of positions and getting staff on board to deal with the workload.

I also thank the Audit Office and the Auditor-General, who support the work of the committee; they are always available. We had a record number of meetings this year—not always very long meetings. We had 28 meetings, and 28 is my favourite number, so I was very happy to hear that in the report; that's lovely. The Auditor-General is a source of counsel, advice and prudent insights, and I think he does a terrific job on behalf of the parliament. I think it's a topic for another day, but, frankly, I think the parliament could make more use of the Auditor-General, particularly through the estimates process, and some of the other committees could develop a habit of drawing on the expertise and work done by the Audit Office. In other parliaments, like the UK and elsewhere, they draw on the audit office far more often, and frequently in the course of their policy work, and seek insights as part of inquiries. I think there is room to make better use of that investment there.

I want to make a couple of remarks on output. I said last year that the committee had done less work that year than in any recent year. There used to be a little tracking table in the annual report. Most annual reports have a table where they have a few metrics where you can look back over the previous years to see how you're going. That table disappeared last year—I think it would have been a bit embarrassing for the committee last year!—and I called on the committee to pick up the pace. I think we have done that in some respects. I'm trying to think of a parliamentary way to say 'constipated'; we should avoid scatological references wherever possible—I'm sure you'd agree, Deputy Speaker Bird! I'll say there is a lot of work gestating in the pipeline of the committee.

I briefly want to read into the Hansard what the table would have said. I will do this very efficiently; I think it is important to have this on the record. Over the last six financial years—2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21—there have been five key metrics. The total number of meetings held was 17, 19, 19, 19, 14 and 28. The number of public hearings—an important metric—was 12, eight, 10, 18, eight and nine; we could lift our game a little bit there. The number of reports tabled—this is a really important metric, on how much advice the committee gives to the parliament at the end of the day—was 10, four, nine, eight, two and five. So last year we had two reports. This year we had five. Those are still amongst the lowest numbers in the last six years, but there is a lot in the pipeline.

On Auditor-General reports selected for inquiry—I mentioned we have to consider every report the Auditor-General tables—the numbers were:12, 18, 15, two, 14 and 13. So we are getting better at shoving work into the pipeline now. The number of recommendations made were: 50 in 2015-16; 17 in 2016-17; 57 in 2017-18; 67—a bumper year—in 2018-19; 12 last year; and 23 this year. So there is a little bit of room for improvement there, but I can say with confidence now, as those stats on the reports selected for inquiry show, that there is a lot of work in the pipeline and that this year we are going to be tabling a bit of stuff out of session to be safe. This year will be a bumper year.

Importantly, the final thing I would note is that the 10-year review of the Auditor-General Act, which doesn't show up in those statistics, is nearing completion by the committee. That's been an enormous piece of work, having a look at the entire architecture of the Audit Office.

I thank all the committee members, the chair, the secretary and the ANAO. There will be lots of great tabling statements if we come back in February. You watch, Deputy Speaker Bird; we will rock this House with our tabling statements!

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