The party reiterates its commitment to prosecuting cases arising from public audit findings, and to publishing outcomes annually.
The Unite Movement for Change welcomes the latest report from the Office of the Auditor General, and commends the staff of that office for the rigour of their work in difficult conditions.
Our position
Audit findings without follow-through are worse than no audit at all — they signal that public money can be misused without consequence. The Unite Movement has been clear, consistently, that every substantiated finding must be referred to the prosecutorial authorities within a fixed window, and that the outcomes of those referrals must be published.
We reiterate three commitments today. First, that any future government we lead will publish an annual public-money outcomes report tracking every audit referral through to its judicial conclusion. Second, that the Auditor General's office will be funded at a level commensurate with the scope of its mandate, not held hostage to the budget cycle. Third, that whistleblower protection legislation — drafted, costed, ready — will be the first bill we table.
Accountability is not a slogan. It is a workflow — and we are going to fund it, staff it, and publish the outcomes.
Next steps
The party's policy team will publish a detailed response to the report's specific findings within ten days. We will not pre-empt that response here, but we will say this: the patterns identified in the report are not new, and the people of this country deserve to see them fixed.
Members of the press with questions about this statement should contact the secretariat directly.