20 June 2009

If we're going to get bad audits let's have less of them

| johnboy
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Jon Stanhope’s entire tenure as Chief Minister has at times been distinguished by weird rejection of realities intruding into the world as he would like it to be.

Some highlights over the years have been:

    — Refusal to believe fire would reach the suburbs on January 18, 2003
    — Refusal to realise that staff caught painting political graffiti on private property can’t stay on the staff

And in recent year’s there have been his “rejections” of the ACT Auditor-General’s efforts to highlight the gaps between Mr. Stanhope’s grand visions and the reality as implemented by the ACT Public Service.

This week’s Audit report into the Ambulance Service appears to have tipped him over the edge. He’s now reported to be threatening to “Audit” the Auditor-General and reduce that office’s funding.

The Liberals’ Vicki Dunne has leapt to the defence of Auditor General Tu Pham.

Mrs Dunne kindly puts this and other erratic behaviour down to the stress of an increasingly speculated on leadership challenge.

My 2c is that it is the product of a longer term inflexibility of thought, and lack of imagination, struggling to come to grips with new information. Although increasing anger while grappling with this cognitive dissonance might have something to do with the rumblings from the lower decks.

If audits keep finding problems the solution is to do more audits, not less.

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sexynotsmart said :

I saw the report on abc.net.au first, but the comment made more sense when I saw Il Stanhope spouting the line on WIN news.

He was standing on the exact spot where he announced the bushfire enquiry. Were I an MLA, I’d be doing everything in my power to stop something similar involving ambos.

Not that the bushfire enquiry wasn’t a waste of time, money and effort. Oh wait – yes it was.

the money he wasted on the enquiry could have gone to the removal of the GST payments those effected by the fires had to endure. too late now. when he starts talking about cutting funding to a department due to the negative light the govt is being painted, what will be next? TAMS continues on, as does intact. want to cut a budget of a bloated waste of money? kill intact and re-distribute the staff and funding back to the other departments.

intact is the isp, act govt is the transact. remove the double dipping.

when will we see an ambo strike for more workers, and better conditions?

I thought part of the Auditor-General’s office was a direct appropriation via the Assembly PAC, and the Audits themselves were conducted on direct cost-recovery to the relevant Dept?

But an organisation with stated goal of “an accountable, effective and efficient ACT public sector” isn’t one I would have expected the Chief Minister to be this on the record with his desire to shut it down.

When people next start asking questions like “What is the Chief Minister hiding from us, and can we continue having confidence in their performance?” he won’t have an independent account to support him…

It’s good to see that Stanhope is helping out the recent argument to decrease the Federal Govt’s interference in territory affairs by acting like the mature, level headed leader we need, isn’t it? Yeah, with leaders like him we are sooo ready.

sexynotsmart8:46 pm 21 Jun 09

I saw the report on abc.net.au first, but the comment made more sense when I saw Il Stanhope spouting the line on WIN news.

He was standing on the exact spot where he announced the bushfire enquiry. Were I an MLA, I’d be doing everything in my power to stop something similar involving ambos.

Not that the bushfire enquiry wasn’t a waste of time, money and effort. Oh wait – yes it was.

Ian said :

And I just noticed, before someone else kindly points it out, that I am guilty of leaving “are” out between “you” and “bagging” and hence come across as a grammar fail. Ready, fire, aim!

Yes I did notice but wasn’t going to partake in a tit for tat slanging match. I was probably a little embarrased. BTW, I did ponder the spelling of that word, but was a bit hasty and didn’t bother to do a spell check, My bad!!! good lesson learnt.

Nice to see you come clean on your grammar.

Ian said :

(and, haha, just noticed you spelt “intellectually” wrong – not a good thing when you bagging out people’s intellectual shortcomings!)

And I just noticed, before someone else kindly points it out, that I am guilty of leaving “are” out between “you” and “bagging” and hence come across as a grammar fail. Ready, fire, aim!

lucky you weren’t tea bagging him then

(and, haha, just noticed you spelt “intellectually” wrong – not a good thing when you bagging out people’s intellectual shortcomings!)

And I just noticed, before someone else kindly points it out, that I am guilty of leaving “are” out between “you” and “bagging” and hence come across as a grammar fail. Ready, fire, aim!

Woody Mann-Caruso10:16 am 21 Jun 09

the Canberra population is intelectually disadvantaged

I think it’s great that they still let you use a computer, though.

Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs.

(By the way, this is the Canberra Times article)

“ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope has flagged an audit and possible funding cut for ACT Auditor-General Tu Pham’s office, after her request for more resources.
Mr Stanhope’s comments came the day after Ms Pham delivered a damning report into the territory’s ambulance services, which found response times to triple-0 calls were well below benchmarks…

The way its being played is that the ACT Auditor General and her Office are currently too good for the Chief Minister’s liking at their job of promoting public accountability in the ACT, identifying risks and recommending mitigations to identified risks that its stakeholders (in order of precedence: the ACT public (its citizens, the community, and the taxpayers) the administration of the ACT as a territory, the ACT as an ongoing enterprise, the ACT Public Sector, with the ACT Government firmly at the end of the line) should be aware of but may not be adequately responding to…

So, in order to better govern the ACT Jon Stanhope is exposing the ACT public sector as a whole to either greater risk or unforseen risk in a time of already unprecedented background financial risk, by further underfunding the head Auditing body within his jurisdiction, in response to what would seem to be a rare piece of good public governance?

How exactly is this a smart move?

Even if Stanhope -does- invite a financial audit of the Auditor-General & her Office, the report still ends up with the Speaker first, and any decision to fund or not to fund is is subject to an Assembly Committee, not the Executive of the Chief Minister.

Greens, its time to step up and obey your own Agreement or you’ll find yourself in breach of it.
(Helper Hint for Beginner Greens:
Your Parliamentary Agreement for the 7th Legislative Assembly of the ACT is subject to point 4), “The parties [being Mr Jon Stanhope, Leader of the Australian Labor Party, ACT Branch AND Ms Meredith Hunter, Parliamentary Convenor of the ACT Greens] to this agreement confirm their commitment to the Agenda for Parliamentary Reform as outlined in Appendix 1 of this agreement”.

Appendix 1:
The Parties commit to:
1. Accountability and Collaboration

1.2 Pursue measures which will ensure:
(a) Parliamentary procedures which enforce the accountability of the Executive
to Parliament and ensure effective law making;

(c) Higher standards of accountability, transparency and responsibility in the
conduct of all public business;)

the last ACT election was a choice basically on a par with choosing your preferred sexually transmitted disease.

If that’s not a poolroom-worthy quote then I don’t know what is!

Don’t forget people, This guy was voted back in less than a year ago. I can form no opinion other than that generally speaking, the Canberra population is intelectually disadvantaged in some way.

Well, apart from those who do think Stanhope and co do a great job, who are intellectually challenged wankers, for most of us, the last ACT election was a choice basically on a par with choosing your preferred sexually transmitted disease.

(and, haha, just noticed you spelt “intellectually” wrong – not a good thing when you bagging out people’s intellectual shortcomings!)

barking toad10:49 pm 20 Jun 09

Narcissism explains the mayor’s behaviour

He has been displaying all the symptoms for years

kean van choc said :

Very Busy said :

Don’t forget people, This guy was voted back in less than a year ago. I can form no opinion other than that generally speaking, the Canberra population is intelectually disadvantaged in some way.

Did you take into account the opposition at the last election as you formed that opinion?

Yep, probably not much good either but couldn’t be any worse. Reelecting this shocking Government results in even more arrogance and incompetence every time. We would be better off changing every 4 years to give the message that they need to lift their game. This would curb the level of arrogance such as that described in this thread.

Besides, you never know, the alternative might just be a whole lot better!!!

kean van choc10:22 pm 20 Jun 09

Very Busy said :

Don’t forget people, This guy was voted back in less than a year ago. I can form no opinion other than that generally speaking, the Canberra population is intelectually disadvantaged in some way.

Did you take into account the opposition at the last election as you formed that opinion?

Don’t forget people, This guy was voted back in less than a year ago. I can form no opinion other than that generally speaking, the Canberra population is intelectually disadvantaged in some way.

only an idiot or a really desperate pollie would use it as a justification for anything.

Well that qualifies Stanhope to use it. He is both.

The cat did it7:28 pm 20 Jun 09

Bizarre reaction- I almost choked on my porridge when I read about this. If it was ‘all his own work’, then someone needs to take him aside for a long talk; if it’s a result of his staffers’ advice, then he needs new staff, ‘cos the current lot are incompetent. Either way they need to get their sh*t together, fast. Even drag out the relevant episode of Yes Minister and get some clues on handling such issues. In a well-run Ministers’ Office, stumbles like this just shouldn’t be allowed happen.

To threaten budget cuts is entirely the wrong reaction, and looks like dumb, lumpen bullying. Using NSW as a benchmark for adequate expenditure on audit is absurd too- everyone knows that NSW government is chronically dysfunctional, has been for years, and that only an idiot or a really desperate pollie would use it as a justification for anything.

cranky said :

How do we establish that the Chief Minister is mentally capable of continuing in the job?

Why do you think ACT Health is improving mental health within the ACT? For all the ACT Chief Ministers

Stanhope’s reaction to this audit report is so bizarre that his grasp on reality is to be questioned.

How do we establish that the Chief Minister is mentally capable of continuing in the job?

Audits mean transparency and therefore better accountability and overall governance. They also mean less control from the top, but governments should accept this as democracy, not chuck spaks!

I do not want one person telling the populace what we should all think – that is totalitarianism.

I agree, a larger budget, not a smaller one, is required.

Accountability is something Chairman Jon has never liked, nothing is ever his fault is it?

At least we had some common sense and didn’t let him have a majority in the Assembly again. The CT article even showed how little thought he put into what he was saying, if you look at his claims:

1. he wants to audit the audit office – only the public accounts committee can do that, he doesn’t have one bit of a say in the operations of the audit office.
2. cut the funds – well obviously that would have an impact on the number of audits he would get critisised in. Cutting the funding would not rid him of bad reports, given the majority of income doesn’t come directly from the government, but from government departments judging by their annual report.

I think it’s time the Opposition and Greens used their weight together and gave Jon a kicking and made demands of more scrutiny not less.

Surely threatening to cut funding to a department because they produced an audit that he didn’t agree with has to be a form of intimidation and boarding on illegal. Being a Labour party socialist he probably thought for a minute he was back in his ideal Soviet Utopia where such behavior was probably common.

Stanhopey will just do what he loves doing, merging organizations, taking over the merged department & destroying it. Since they do the same job the Audit Office will most likely be merged with Treasury.

We need things to be run by people that have an idea of the department they are running. Take ACTION for example before it was merged with TAMS it was being run by ex bus drivers who had an idea what the public wanted & they spent as much money as they could to deliver that service. As soon as ACTION was merged with TAMS, it was then run by Public servants that have no idea about those big orange or green things that they have to give way to (but don’t). So these public servants were thinking about the money. So services were seriously cut. Proof of this is that since ACTION was taken over by TAMS, this year is the first year that a fare increase was approved. As I remember back around 2006/2007 it was said that unless services are improved no fare increase would be approved. Although we are no were near an acceptable service, we are getting there.

I really hope the majority of the Assembly responds to this threat by using its numbers to force an increase in the Auditor-General’s budget.

There’s times when commonsense should prevail.

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