Auditor-General blasts Brumby’s lack of accountability

Victoria’s Auditor-General has today blasted John Brumby and his government for their failure to properly account for whether $31 billion of taxpayers’ funds have been spent effectively.

“Victorians know that under John Brumby, accountability in Victoria has become a dirty word,” Shadow Minister for Finance, Robert Clark said today.

“This report shows that Labor cannot be trusted to tell the public what results are actually being achieved for its spending of $31 billion in taxpayers’ funds.

“We have warned for years that Labor has become so desperate to hide its failures that key performance measures which reveal its incompetence are either delayed, re-defined or scrapped altogether.

“Labor has covered up its incompetence and failures on hospital waiting lists, police hours spent fighting crime and train punctuality by manipulation, spin and sweeping criticism under the carpet,” Mr Clark said.

In a damning report entitled Performance Measurement by Departments, the Auditor-General has found:

• Overall, there is a lack of effective outcomes performance reporting across the departments, and the standard of reporting varies considerably. (p.vii)
• While other jurisdictions have made considerable advances in outcomes performance reporting over the last decade, Victoria has made little demonstrable on the ground progress. (p.vii)
• [only] … around 30 per cent of the 322 indicators were relevant and appropriate. (p.viii)
• Six departments had no or a limited number of departmental indicators that were relevant to the achievement of their objectives. These departments represented nearly half of the state’s allocated funding for the general government sector in 2007–08 and 2008–09 years examined. (p.viii)
• … the effective use of this funding, equating to around $31 billion over the two years, has not been demonstrated. (p.viii)

“John Brumby is so desperate to avoid facing up to this criticism that he is claiming the Auditor-General’s report is biased, lacks balance and is of questionable validity, claims that were rejected by the Auditor-General,” Mr Clark said.

“This report shows that because of Labor’s incompetence and refusal to be accountable, Victorians do not know what results are achieved from the spending of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money.

“Once again, instead of accepting responsibility, John Brumby and his ministers have reacted to justifiable criticism by abusing the critic and launching a disgraceful attack on the integrity and competence of the Auditor-General and his staff,” Mr Clark said.