Tourism Australia has “acknowledged” its mistakes and promised to ensure its future spending will be “compliant and clearly demonstrate value for money” after an audit report found 70% of its procurement didn’t feature open competition.
At a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday night, managing director Phillipa Harrison also confirmed an Australian Federal Police investigation into a former senior staff member is still ongoing.
That probe was opened after Tourism Australia made a police referral about a trio of employees who had gone on public holidays using taxpayer money. As first revealed by Crikey last year, Tourism Australia fired a senior employee and two of their China-based colleagues last year for blowing $137,441 of taxpayer money on the trips. The money was later paid back.
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Tourism Australia fronted estimates two months after a damning Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) report revealed systematic flaws in the agency’s procurement processes, involving contracts totalling $370 million.
The ANAO found Tourism Australia neither complied with Commonwealth procurement rules nor demonstrated it achieved value for money as it spent hundreds of millions of dollars. The agency even failed to keep records demonstrating how it procured the services of its own probity advisor, according to the audit.
At Thursday’s hearing, Nationals Senator Ross Cadell spent just nine minutes asking questions about the audit. No other senators, including anyone from the Greens or crossbench, showed up to ask questions.
Asked about the audit, Harrison asked to read from a prepared statement, in which she “acknowledged the shortcomings” identified by the ANAO, and added Tourism Australia had accepted all recommendations and was now “fully committed” to implementing new processes, policies and training to improve procurement practices. Those efforts included hiring the services of consultancy Yardstick Advisory, whose director Sam Skelton will be reporting to the Tourism Australia board every month.
Still, at another point in the hearing, Harrison also defended her agency’s existing processes.
“We’ve always had a fairly stringent procurement policy,” she said. “I think where we let ourselves down is we just didn’t have a strong enough contract management system that had gates that sort of guided staff through that process. So, you know, there’s always really good intent around managing our procurement. I think we just didn’t have the system there.”
Harrison said Mark Craig, the agency’s executive general manager for corporate services, retired in January for personal health reasons, and that while there was an acting executive in the role, the “ultimate responsibility” for overseeing procurement and contract management services sat with her.
She acknowledged that Tourism Australia’s website still listing Craig as active in the role was an “oversight” that would be rectified.
There were no questions about the AFP’s investigation into the agency, although Harrison answered “yes” when Cadell suggested the investigation was ongoing.
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