Article: Anna Bligh attacked over government-owned corporations

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Anna Bligh attacked over government-owned corporations

Anna Bligh attacked over government-owned corporations
Article from: The Courier-Mail

Steven Wardill

October 27, 2009 11:00pm

THE Bligh Government has been accused of peddling commercial-in-confidence as an excuse to hide the real performance of its corporations.

Queensland Auditor-General Glen Poole has lambasted the lack of openness of government-owned corporations in his latest report, tabled in State Parliament yesterday.

The report found that recommendations from 2006 to provide the public with more information about the performance of government-owned corporations had been ignored.

Mr Poole's report said the corporations were using commercial-in-confidence to hide or delay the release of information.

"In my view, Parliament and other stakeholders do not receive an adequate standard of information on GOC performance in a number of areas, which include a lack of disclosure on forward plans and longer-term performance targets," he wrote.

Mr Poole recommended the corporations develop and publish performance indicators annually so their efforts could be compared year on year.

He recommended that a suitable format for each GOC's Statement of Corporate Intent, which outline planned spending, be released at the start of each financial year.

These statements are now only released after the spending has occurred following each financial year and contain little or no performance criteria.

Mr Poole also recommended Treasury develop an overarching corporate governance policy for GOCs and release a report annually on the sector's performance.

In response to the report, Under Treasurer Gerard Bradley said the full release of the statements and the inclusion of performance targets was "not in the broader public interest".

He said Treasury would consider publishing select information on each GOC's website before each financial year.

However, Mr Poole said there were questions as to whether hidden information was commercial-in-confidence to start with and the Government was supposed to be proactively releasing material under the new Right to Information laws.

Opposition treasury spokesman Tim Nicholls said Queenslanders had the right to know how the GOCs were performing.

He said it was about time the Bligh Government ditched the "secret state mentality".