This audit would assess the effectiveness of Snowy Hydro Limited’s delivery of Snowy 2.0.

The Commonwealth is Snowy Hydro Limited’s sole shareholder. Following on from Auditor-General Report No. 33 2021–22 Snowy 2.0 Governance of Early Implementation, this audit would include an assessment of Snowy Hydro Limited’s ongoing management of quality, cost and schedule for Snowy 2.0.

The 2024–25 Federal Budget announced additional funding of $7.1 billion over four years to Snowy Hydro Limited to support continued construction of Snowy 2.0.

This audit would assess the effectiveness and efficiency of cost recovery activities conducted by IP Australia. Areas to be examined would be cost recovery implementation models used by IP Australia, business processes used in cost recovery, and calculation of fee structures. The current cost recovery model was revised following a Productivity Commission recommendation (No. 78, 23 September 2016) that suggested patent fees should be set to promote IP policy objectives rather than cost recovery.

The audit would assess the delivery of outcomes achieved by selected entities as intended by government approved New Policy Proposals.

The audit objective was to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the Services Australia’s management of Smart Centres’ telephony services.

Services Australia operates the largest contact centre in the southern hemisphere with over 79 smart centres across Australia delivering telephony and processing services for Centrelink, Medicare and Child Support, and surge services for Department of Veterans’ Affairs and whole of government activities. In 2022–23 Services Australia reported that it handled 55.2 million calls. In October 2023, Services Australia informed Parliament that over 9,400,000 customers were booked into virtual waiting rooms and the longest wait time was almost 3 hours, over 9 million customers received congestion messaging and over 4 million calls were terminated by the customer. In the 2024–25 Federal Budget, the government announced $1.8 billion over three years from 2023–24 for additional frontline staff to help stabilise Services Australia claims backlog and service standards.

Services Australia’s reported in its 2022–23 Annual Performance Statements that it partially achieved its strategic performance measure of 70 per cent of customers served within 15 minutes. Services Australia also reported that the performance result may have been impacted by the lack of system functionality to combine call wait times once a call had been transferred.

The audit would follow-on from Auditor-General Report No. 28 2018–19 Management of Smart Centres’ Centrelink Telephone Services — Follow-up which contained two recommendations relating to monitoring and reporting on effectiveness of digital service delivery and wait times and finalising the review of key performance indicators.

This audit would assess the effectiveness of the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations (ORIC) in management of non-compliance with the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 (CATSI Act).

The Registrar of Indigenous Corporations (the Registrar) is an independent statutory office holder supported by around 40 employees within the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA). ORIC describes its purpose as ‘to register Indigenous groups that want to incorporate or to transfer their registration to operate under the CATSI Act; help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations to run properly—according to their own rules and cultures—and ensure they don’t break the law; and offer support, advice and training to help corporations do the best job for their communities’.

Auditor-General Report No. 3 2017–18 Supporting Good Governance in Indigenous Corporations found that ORIC supported good governance in Indigenous corporations by maintaining public registers; monitoring and enforcing compliance; and providing information, advice and education; but made three recommendations relating to registering Indigenous corporations, dealing with disqualified persons and managing risk. In 2021, the NIAA released a final report of a review into the CATSI Act that recommended enhancements to the regulatory powers available to the Registrar under the Act. An amendment bill to the CATSI Act passed the House of Representatives in 2021 but lapsed at the end of the 46th Parliament. This audit would examine the use of the Registrar’s powers and functions to manage non-compliance with the CATSI Act.

This audit would examine the Department of Social Services’ (the department’s) management of its Data Exchange (DEX) performance reporting portal.

DEX is a web portal that allows providers receiving government funding to report on program outputs (such as the number of clients assisted) and outcomes (such as improvements in clients’ health and wellbeing). It is underpinned by three principles: providers should spend less time collecting and reporting administrative data and more time helping clients; data collection should focus on client outcomes; and client personal information and privacy is protected. The department uses DEX as the data source for three corporate plan performance measures under its Families and Communities and Disability and Carers programs. DEX has also been extended to other Commonwealth and state government programs, including grant programs delivered through DSS’s Community Grants Hub. While the department is responsible for managing DEX, Services Australia has operated the portal since 2021 as part of its delivery of shared ICT services for the department.

This audit would assess the effectiveness of the Australian Taxation Office’s (ATO’s) management of compliance in the small business market.

The ATO reported that there are around 4.5 million small businesses in Australia as of October 2023, and that the net income tax gap for the small business market was $15.1 billion (or 12.8 per cent of the theoretical liability for small businesses) in 2020–21. This is the ATO’s largest tax gap in terms of value (the ATO’s overall net tax gap is $37.5 billion). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the ATO shifted resources to focus on supporting small businesses through the pandemic. In its 2023–24 corporate plan, the ATO identified ‘improving small business tax performance’ as a key focus area.

This audit would assess the effectiveness of Defence’s management of the disposal of specialist military equipment (SME).

As at 30 June 2023, Defence reported that it managed $136.3 billion of total assets, including $84.3 billion of specialist military equipment. When one of these items is no longer suitable for or is surplus to Defence’s requirements, Defence disposes of it by either: transferring it to an Australian government agency or another government, selling it, gifting it or destroying it. An audit would examine whether the disposal of selected SME was conducted in accordance with Defence policy and applicable Commonwealth legislative requirements.

This audit would assess the effectiveness of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s management of biosecurity risks for goods.

The Biosecurity Act 2015 provides the department with powers that may be exercised to assess the level of biosecurity risk for goods subject to biosecurity control, and measures that may be taken if the level of risk is deemed to be unacceptable.

This audit would assess the effectiveness of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s administration of post entry quarantine.

Imported plants and animals, including cats, dogs, birds and horses, complete quarantine at the department’s Post Entry Quarantine facility in Mickleham, Victoria.