Wednesday, 5 June 2019

 Ms RYAN (Euroa) (10:05): It is my pleasure to rise today to speak on the only report that has so far been tabled in this term of Parliament, the Report on the Appointment of a Person to Conduct the Financial Audit of the Victorian Auditor‑General’s Office, and in so doing I really wanted to reflect on just how important the Auditor-General is to this place and to the integrity of government. The Victorian-Auditor General’s Office (VAGO) obviously tables a number of reports in this place over four years. Today we have seen the Auditor-General table a report into child and youth mental health, which will no doubt contain findings of great interest to all members of this chamber.

But the Auditor-General’s role is even more important when you have a government that is spending such huge quantities of money. It is doubling debt and is failing to meet many of its budget performance measures. I particularly wanted to reflect on some of the failings of the government around public transport, most particularly V/Line. I note that the Auditor-General tabled a report in August 2017 into V/Line passenger services, where he made some salient points around the fact that V/Line often failed to meet its performance targets, particularly on services to the outside of the city. But if you have a look at this year’s budget papers, it actually shows that V/Line has now posted its worst performance in 10 years. The scheduled services delivered for regional trains are at their lowest in 10 years, at 96.3 per cent and well below the target of 98.5 per cent.

Mr Pearson: On a point of order, Speaker, I just seek your guidance. I note the member is making a contribution that relates to the Auditor-General, but my understanding is that the time allocated for the consideration of parliamentary reports relates to those reports that are generated by the committee itself. This report that has been tabled is a very narrow report. It relates to the appointment of a financial auditor to conduct an audit of VAGO. It does not relate to the actions of VAGO. It does not relate to reports that may or may not have been tabled yet by the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office, so I just seek your guidance as to whether the member is actually speaking on the appropriate report.

Ms RYAN: On the point of order, Speaker, the report does actually note the very important role of the Auditor-General in assessing, particularly, budget performance measures, and so to that end I put it to you that I am being entirely relevant in talking about the reports that VAGO has previously tabled in this place.

The SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order raised by the member for Essendon. The report that the honourable member is speaking to is a fairly narrow report. I am prepared to accept some comments in broader policy areas to put this report in context, but the member’s contribution should not be entirely on policy areas or other Auditor-General’s reports. The member should confine her remarks to the report that is in front of us.

Ms RYAN: In the 1 minute and 30 seconds remaining I would reflect on the fact that the tabling of this report on the appointment of an auditor for the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office reveals how important the role of VAGO is to this place. When you consider the reports that VAGO has brought forward over the last four years I do think they demonstrate that the government has a range of problems, and the one that I was highlighting in particular was public transport and the fact that the government has failed to deliver on its budget measures, which fundamentally is the role of the Victorian Auditor-General—to highlight to the Victorian public where the government is failing and where there is a need for improvement.

There can be absolutely no doubt that V/Line is one of those agencies where the government is failing to adhere to those benchmarks that it has set out. It would be my hope that in the next 12 months we may see the Auditor-General undertake further inquiry into why V/Line has now posted its worst performance in a decade under the watch of the Andrews Labor government.