16 May 2008

Station: ABC 666 Canberra
Program: Breakfast
Time: 08:33 AM
Compere: Ross Solly

Item: Ross Solly interviews Bob Debus, Federal Minister for Home Affairs, about the National Capital Authority and the Australian National Audit Office audit.

Interviewees: Bob Debus, Federal Minister for Home Affairs

ROSS SOLLY: But before that, the National Capital Authority has amongst its tasks, maintaining national assets in the ACT. According to the Australian National Audit Office, it's largely failed that task.

It's completely botched its management of diplomatic leases, which are of course our foreign embassies here in Canberra. It's done itself out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Its asset management plan wasn't introduced until six years after it was drawn up and apparently it is still out of date. In fact, a computerised system which cost $800,000, and has since had another $600,000 spent on it, sits largely unused.

There are contractors that have been overpaid, rents that haven't been collected and maintenance and repair works on Scrivener Dam, that have been largely ignored for the best part of ten years.

As I mentioned, the chief executive officer of the National Capital Authority, Annabelle Pegrum resigned yesterday, although she denies there is any connection to the Audit Office report, it's just a coincidence, an unfortunate coincidence indeed.

Bob Debus, he's the Minister of Home Affairs and he joins us this morning.

Good morning to you, Minister.

BOB DEBUS: Ross, how are you?

ROSS SOLLY: Very well, thank you for your time this morning. Is there anything in this report that particularly alarms you?

BOB DEBUS: Well I think the issue is that one can have nothing but deep concern that there have apparently been such systematic failures of management over such a long time.

You have of course accurately summarised the report of the National Audit Office and it doesn't make comfortable reading at all. I of course now have referred the National Audit Office to the Joint Standing Committee of the Parliament, which is considering the way in which we should address the National Capital Authority into the future and it's probably a good thing that we can bring it all together. The Standing Committee is going to report to me by the end of June.

ROSS SOLLY: Apparently, I'm told, that the Audit Office only looked into three contracts as part of it's review, three out of possibly hundreds of contracts that the National Capital Authority has had over the past ten years. That's a worry isn't it?

BOB DEBUS: Yes it is. I mean what we see here is a so called asset management system which just has not worked and asset management systems are the way in which government agencies set about the everyday control and maintenance of the property and equipment they are in control of.

It does suggest that there was very much to be desired in the way these things have been carried out by NCA.

I must say that there has been evidence given at the Standing Committee already, which suggests a Professor…

ROSS SOLLY: Stephen Bartos, yes.

BOB DEBUS. He was pointing out, what I think to be true, that the National Capital Authority was set up with a quite unusual system of governance, a quite unusual structure defining the relationship between the board and the CEO and the minister.

I await the recommendations of the Joint Committee in that respect as well. But I must say I haven't before - and you may know that I spent quite a long time in the State Government of New South Wales - I haven't before come across an agency that was so much at arm's length from government in terms of its day to day responsibilities.

We wanted it to be - everybody wants the NCA to have a significant degree of independence but things are not looking the best in terms of the structure that has been put in place over the years, at the present time.

ROSS SOLLY: So are you saying Minister that one of the ramifications from this report is that in future, the Government of the day will have much more say? The independence, a lot of the independence of the NCA will be lost?

BOB DEBUS: Well I'm not saying it so literally. I await the recommendations of the Standing Committee. But I do think that we'll need to be looking very carefully at that relationship, just so that into the future everybody is more sure about what the activities of the NCA are and that it's being held responsible just in the normal way. In the way that has been standard for government agencies for many years now really.

ROSS SOLLY: In its submission to the Audit Office, the National Capital Authority blames a lack of funding, says that its funding shortfall has basically made it impossible to carry out some of its duties, some of its responsibilities.

BOB DEBUS: Well that too is the kind of thing that the Standing Committee is looking at, but the Audit Report is of course referring to events that are a decade old.

The questions about the funding are of course of very recent origins.

ROSS SOLLY: Would you have some sympathy though, if the Capital Authority says look basically we didn't have the money to carry out our maintenance program. We didn't have the money to make sure the Scrivener Dam was safe and working okay.

BOB DEBUS: Well I know that there have been some genuine arguments, as it were, around the question of funding in very recent times. I've spoken with you about that once or twice during the course of this year.

But, I can not accept that the question of making the Scrivener Dam work properly is one in which it might be said that an absence of funding is the problem. This is an issue that goes back many years.

The Scrivener Dam, I think, was first raised as an issue by a consultant engineer back in the year 2000. I could be corrected about that exact date…

ROSS SOLLY: 1998 in fact.

BOB DEBUS: 1998.

ROSS SOLLY: In 1998 it was first raised.

BOB DEBUS: And another consultant made another set of recommendations in the year 2000. You go to the question of whether the electrical system of the gates on the dam work, I mean that's not really an issue to be talked about in terms of whether there is adequate funding now.

ROSS SOLLY: All right, this does though address the question of adequate funding because the National Capital Authority has in its submission looked forward to 2008/2009 and basically is saying unless there is additional funding, the National Capital Authority will not be able to maintain facilities in the national capital to meet obligations regarding public safety, amenity end use, and will not be able to comply with environment and heritage legislation.

BOB DEBUS: Well, the Audit Report shows does it not, that that kind of claim by the Authority has got to be seen to be somewhat tendentious. I don't think I can make a final judgment about that kind of proposition until we know much more about the details that are uncovered by the Audit Report…

ROSS SOLLY: It would concern you though wouldn't it Minister?

BOB DEBUS: Sorry and indeed until we work out just what the National Capital Authority should actually be doing.

ROSS SOLLY: Would it concern you if the National Capital Authority couldn't meet its responsibilities regarding maintaining facilities to meet basic public safety and environment and heritage legislation laws?

BOB DEBUS: Well of course it would concern me if it was so. But the argument that again you have touched on from time to time on your program during the course of this year, has been in part about the priorities that the National Capital Authority should be setting itself.

It's been hard to understand the full detail of the priority setting process because the National Capital Authority has been such a law unto itself, under its own Act. It has had this very much arm's length relationship from everybody around the place, and that question of its structure and the way it ought to be governed, is one of the things that the Standing Committee is looking at.

I think that we can answer your question about priorities and resources and budgets only by considering them all together.

ROSS SOLLY: Right. Have you spoken to the National Capital Authority since this Audit Office Report was released?

BOB DEBUS: I have not personally spoken to anybody in the last 18 hours, I have been in transit.

ROSS SOLLY: Have you spoken to Annabelle Pegrum in the past 48 hours?

BOB DEBUS: Yes I had a conversation with her. I don't of course want to discuss that as a public matter but I…

ROSS SOLLY: Okay did you initiate the conversation or did she call you?

BOB DEBUS: If you forgive me I don't think it's appropriate that I talk about that private conversation.

ROSS SOLLY: Okay. Did you know she was resigning yesterday?

BOB DEBUS: Yes I did.

ROSS SOLLY: When did you learn that she was going to resign yesterday?

BOB DEBUS: Well just soon before that.

ROSS SOLLY: So she called you to tell you she was resigning?

BOB DEBUS: She and I had a meeting and we had a private conversation and I was aware that she would be resigning yes.

ROSS SOLLY: So, I suppose what I'm asking, Bob Debus, you didn't suggest to her - she hasn't been pushed has she?

BOB DEBUS: Oh no, no. I should say that my own personal relationships with Annabelle have always been entirely amicable and I can assure you that I didn't ask her to resign.

ROSS SOLLY: Did you suggest it could happen though? Was it your suggestion?

BOB DEBUS: No.

ROSS SOLLY: So it was her decision and her decision alone.

BOB DEBUS: That's right.

ROSS SOLLY: No one in your office might have suggested it was the appropriate thing to do.

BOB DEBUS: That's right.

ROSS SOLLY: This was a first. Because she said she'd actually - according to a media report this morning, she won't make herself available to talk to us, that she'd actually made this decision some months ago, obviously that hadn't been forwarded to you?

BOB DEBUS: That's true.

ROSS SOLLY: Which part is true? That it hadn't been forwarded to you or she'd made her…

BOB DEBUS: Yes hadn't been forwarded to me. Yes I simply can't comment on when she made the decision. I knew about her decision a little while before it became public, but it was her decision.

ROSS SOLLY: Bob Debus, good to speak with you, thank you for your time this morning.

BOB DEBUS: Thanks Ross.

ROSS SOLLY: That is the Minister for Home Affairs, Bob Debus. As I mentioned we did put in calls to Annabelle Pegrum this morning hoping she would talk to us about her decision but she was unavailable.

End