Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition Senator Scott Ryan has continued his criticism of the Government’s changes to the Australian National Audit Office, noting that a small business is more likely than the NBN Co to be audited.
In Additional Estimates in the Finance and Public Administration Committee on Monday evening, Auditor-General Ian McPhee acknowledged the ANAO’s ambit has been significantly broadened due to the Auditor-General Amendments 2011.
This means that small businesses that win tenders to assist in Government projects have more chance of being audited than large government business enterprises, such as Medibank and NBN Co.
Mr McPhee said the ANAO is currently updating its guidance material to reflect the amendments, but that it continues to rely on requests, usually from MPs or the public, before investigating government business enterprises, large and small.
Senator Ryan was a criticism of the Auditor-General Amendments Bill and continued to flag serious concerns about Auditor-General’s new powers in Additional Estimates.
“The power to investigate small businesses is there and the threat of the power can be almost as bad as its use,” Senator Ryan, the chair of the Finance and Public Administration References Committee said.
Senator Ryan called on the Auditor-General to get on the” bully pulpit” and scrutinise the $50 billion NBN project and leave small businesses in peace.
“Compliance costs are already a significant problem for small and medium businesses. The addition of the threat of being audited is not at all helpful and may even make it more difficult for small businesses to access government contractors,” Senator Ryan said. “ I cannot imagine anything that would scare a small business more than the threat of an army of Canberra auditors coming into their business.”
“I hope Auditor-General McPhee lives up to his commitment to avoid using his extended powers on small government contractors, especially when there are billions of dollars of taxpayer’s fund being spent on the NBN without any cost-benefit analysis.”