2015-06-23
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — The minister may argue that my question is irrelevant to the scope of the bill. I will argue that my question is absolutely essential to the implementation of this piece of legislation, and it relates to the Auditor-General's continuous request for powers to follow the public dollar. At the moment, as the minister would be well aware, the Auditor-General cannot follow some of the funds that are appropriated in this budget once they are spent by a private entity, a public-private partnership or even a piece of grant funding. The only ability the Auditor-General has is to audit the government's own tracking of those funds.
If this were British Columbia, the Auditor-General would have the power to follow each and every dollar appropriated in this bill. The link to his power is the link to the money having been appropriated. My question to the minister is: when will he and the Department of Premier and Cabinet first meet with the Auditor-General to begin a discussion about the form these powers ought to take, because I understand that we have a commitment that these powers will be brought into legislation before the end of this calendar year?
[Speech was interrupted. Click here to view the full debate.]
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — That is exactly what I am arguing: in the context of this appropriation and in terms of the house's consideration of the bill and the implementation of this legislation — that is, the spending of all this funding — members want to know whether we would be able to call on the services of the Auditor-General to explain to us, as this bill rolls out of the financial year, where exactly the money went, how it was expended and whether it was used efficiently and effectively for the purposes for which we are appropriating it today. It makes a difference to our consideration of this bill whether we can expect the Auditor-General to be able to track the money — all the money — for us or whether we will run up against the sort of barriers he has been continually alluding to. I have given the minister an opportunity to answer the question; I am not going to press him for an answer.