Coalition accused of trying to avoid scrutiny after audit office budget cut
The agency that uncovered sports rorts and the massive overspend on land at the Western Sydney airport should be protected from budget cuts with greater independence and special status, Labor’s Julian Hill has said.
Hill wants the Australian National Audit Office to become a parliamentary department, on par with the Parliamentary Budget Office, to protect the watchdog from cuts that will see its audits slashed from a target of 48 a year to just 38.
In Tuesday’s budget the government slashed $14m from the ANAO’s operating budget, prompting concerns from opposition parties and independents that the watchdog was being whittled away as payback for high-profile and politically damaging investigations.
On Wednesday Scott Morrison dead-batted a question in parliament by claiming it would reconsider resourcing issues after a 10-year review being conducted by the audit committee.
Before the budget, the auditor general wrote to Morrison asking for an additional $6.3m in 2020-21 to deliver 48 performance audits a year, rising to $9.1m extra in 2023-24.
The call received wide political support from Labor, the Greens and independents, including senator Rex Patrick and MP Zali Steggall. Even the audit committee, which is controlled by Coalition members and chaired by Liberal MP Lucy Wicks, made a confidential recommendation for ANAO funding to be increased.
Tuesday’s budget contained no new measures relating to the ANAO, but due to its ongoing deficits and the Coalition’s efficiency dividend, the watchdog’s resources fell from $112m in 2019-20 to $98m in 2020-21.
Much of the cut will fall on performance audits, the budget for which shrinks from $33.4m in 2019-20 to $28.9m in 2023-24.
Instead of the 42 performance audits delivered last year, the ANAO now expects to deliver 40 audits in 2021-22, declining to 38 by 2023-24.
Patrick told Guardian Australia: “The thing that people who operate in dark corners fear the most is light. The auditor carries a very bright torch. The prime minister has just taken away one of the torch batteries.”
Patrick labelled funding cuts “nothing short of an assault on oversight of government”. He added it would be “entirely reasonable” to conclude cuts were “retribution for [the auditor general’s] continued exposure of government maladministration, cost blowouts and highly questionable conduct by ministers and officials”.
The joint committee of public accounts and audit is tasked with advocating for the auditor general, but its deputy chair, Hill, said the system “is failing”.
“We haven’t seen the chair or government members of the committee say boo about the auditor general’s budget being cut again – and performance audits have gone off a cliff,” he told Guardian Australia.
Although the ANAO is theoretically appointed by the parliament, Hill noted in addition to its dependence on the government for funding, the watchdog was also subject to directions from the government.
In 2018 the government gagged the watchdog, suppressing criticism of a $1.3bn arms deal. The finance minister has also used powers over the auditor-general to prevent him revealing budget cuts to the audit committee, Hill said.
“We need an audit office that is fully independent from the executive government and properly resourced.
“The ANAO should formally be a department of parliament – removing any potential conflict about being a public entity overseen by the prime minister and removing any potential conflict around budget matters.
“It would mean that, like the PBO, the presiding officers, the Speaker of the House and the president of the Senate are there to stick up for its independence.”
In question time on Wednesday, Steggall said the ANAO was the only government agency “shining a light on misuse of public funds” and asked how the government would prevent porkbarrelling and mismanagement of taxpayer funding with fewer audits.
Morrison replied that when the government will “consider the resourcing” of the auditor general and make a “fulsome response” after the 10-year review of the audit committee.
The audit committee’s recommendation, revealed by Guardian Australia last Thursday, was given to parliament on Tuesday in a speech by Hill on behalf of the chair.
The committee acknowledged the “difficult budgetary environment” but provided a “qualified recommendation in support of the auditor-general’s request for supplementation”, he said.
“The committee’s majority recommendation is that the ANAO not be exempt from this efficiency dividend.”
The Greens democracy spokeswoman, Larissa Waters, said the government “is doing all it can to avoid public scrutiny, this time using the budget to stifle our accountability and transparency bodies”.
“The government has given no extra funding to the ANAO – the agency that uncovered sports rorts – knowing full well that it will be forced to cut the number of its audits,” she said.
The thing that people who operate in dark corners fear the most is light. The auditor carries a very bright torch
Rex Patrick