Stop Government waste
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Welcome from Fiona Simpson, Shadow Minister for Waste Watch
As part of the Campbell Newman team, I am committed to Cut Down on Labor's Waste, so we Can Do more for Queenslanders. Share this:
| $16m goes missing from Qld Health despite audit warnings months ago |
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Premier Anna Bligh must explain how an alleged fraud of $16 million from Queensland Health occurred despite the Auditor-General warning months ago of risks from lax financial controls across government, the State Opposition said today.
An Auditor-General's report tabled in State Parliament in June warned that: "There appears to have been a loss of focus across the public sector on maintaining basic financial controls with the number of agencies failing to maintain these controls increasing. This trend has the potential to expose the public sector as a whole to significant risk." Deputy Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls said Premier Anna Bligh must come clean about what action her Government took in the wake of the Auditor-General's report. "It is absolutely mind boggling that a single forged signature is all it took to allegedly embezzle $16 million of taxpayers' money," he said. "This is the biggest alleged fraud of taxpayers' money in the state's history and the public deserves to know how the government's accountability measures and processes allowed this to happen. "We know Health Minister Geoff Wilson has demonstrably failed to fix health finance systems. What we also know today is that Government Services Minister Simon Finn and Australia's worst Treasurer Andrew Fraser have their fingerprints on this as well because they were the ones warned by the Auditor-General months ago. "What action did Andrew Fraser and Simon Finn take to address the Auditor-General's concerns about systemic failures and lax financial controls? "Was this audit report just left to gather dust on a shelf like so many other reports highlighting the failures of this tired 20 year old Labor Government?" Mr Nicholls said Queensland Health had been rocked by scandal after scandal under Labor while patients struggled to access vital frontline health services. "On Labor's watch, Jayant Patel was employed, an MP convicted of corruption was once Health Minister, a $220m health payroll system was monumentally bungled and now a Queensland Health employee accused of stealing $16m of taxpayers' money is on the run. "Every day under this tired, 20 year old Labor Government the problems just get bigger and bigger. "It's time that Queenslanders were given the opportunity to vote out this incompetent Government so that the LNP can stop the waste and get Queensland back on track. "The LNP will restore accountability and transparency in Government."       |
