Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill this morning prior to the rest of the debate. I will confine my comments to enable that debate to proceed as quickly as possible. The coalition supports the Auditor-General Amendment Bill 2008 [2009]. It basically comes out of recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee of Public Accounts and Audit in, I think, 2001. The government of the day had some minor concerns and these have been addressed and are reflected in the current bill. We obviously support the role of the Auditor-General. It is extremely important in the context of proper scrutiny of the activities of government. This bill will enable that scrutiny to be further enhanced. I note that there was, in Audit Report No. 19, released by the Auditor-General yesterday, scrutiny of the CMAX Communications contract for the 2020 Summit and the activities of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. If you look at that report, it indeed reflects the importance of the role of the Auditor-General and the requirement that we provide the Auditor-General with the requisite powers to address government and government activities. I also note with interest that the spin of the government last night in relation to this report on CMAX Communications and the activities of the staff of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, involving a senior member of Minister Fitzgibbon’s office, was that this report cleared those activities. As honourable senators know