ACT Auditor-General
A short factsheet on the ACT Auditor-General: its establishing Act, its financial and performance audit function, and why it reports to the Legislative Assembly rather than the executive.
Learning outcomes
- State the ACT Auditor-General's establishing Act and its role auditing public sector financial statements and performance, reporting to the Assembly rather than the executive.
Act: Auditor-General Act 1996 (ACT).1
Established: The Act creates the office outright. Section 6 says, in full: "There must be an Auditor-General for the Territory." Compare the ACT's own custodial inspector, whose Act contains no such provision and whose office exists only because s 9(1) requires an appointment to be made. Section 6A(1) then places the office: the auditor-general is an independent officer of the Legislative Assembly, not a public servant in a directorate. The Speaker appoints, on behalf of the Territory, in consultation with the Chief Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and other party leaders (s 8(1)) — an appointment deliberately taken out of the hands of the executive the office audits.
Purpose: The Auditor-General independently audits the financial statements of ACT government agencies and can conduct performance audits examining whether public money and resources are used efficiently and effectively. Reports go to the Legislative Assembly, not to the executive government being audited — the same institutional-independence logic behind the Ombudsman and Electoral Commission.
Where the authority sits
Independence here is statutory and specific, not a description of culture. Section 7(1) gives the auditor-general complete discretion in exercising their functions, and s 7(2) says they are not subject to direction from anyone about whether a particular audit is carried out or the way it is carried out. The functions in s 10(1) include promoting public accountability in the public administration of the Territory and auditing the annual financial statements of the Territory, directorates and territory authorities.
Powers conferred under the Act
The Auditor-General can access agency records and information necessary for an audit, and publishes audit reports that are tabled in the Assembly. The office does not have enforcement powers of its own — its influence comes from independent reporting and public/parliamentary accountability, not binding orders against an agency.
Is it a prosecuting authority?
No. The Act confers audit and reporting functions, not prosecution. An audit may find that money was misspent; acting on that finding is for the agency, the Assembly, or a body with its own enforcement or prosecution power. Reading "the Auditor-General enforces" into a fact pattern is the common error here.
How it relates to the other ACT bodies
The Auditor-General audits financial and performance matters; it does not investigate individual maladministration complaints (the ACT Ombudsman's role) or corrupt conduct (the ACT Integrity Commission's role), though an audit finding could in practice prompt a referral to either.
Self-check
- Have I described the Auditor-General as reporting to the Assembly, not the executive?
- Have I distinguished financial/performance auditing from complaint investigation and corruption oversight?