Secretary failed to declare attendance at events, audit finds

The audit also revealed a nearly $15,000 spend on hospitality for a budget night event in 2022 did not have sufficient pre-approval.

The Australian National Audit Office examined Treasury's management of gifts, benefits and hospitality between July 1, 2021 and September 30, 2023.

The audit, published on Monday, found eight instances of non-compliance with the Australian Public Service Commission's requirements.

It also found Treasury was reliant on self-declaration of gifts, after a decision in 2022 not to implement detective controls.

Four of the non-compliance instances related to Dr Kennedy's attendance at events where hospitality was provided, which were not reported on the public register.

The events were a 2022 gala dinner hosted by the Australian Financial Review, post-budget luncheons hosted by Westpac (March, 2022) and Qantas (October, 2022) and a 2023 dinner hosted by the Business Council of Australia.

The audit noted officials from other Commonwealth entities who attended these events had recorded the receipts of hospitality on their public registers.

The other four instances of non-compliance were gifts that were not reported to the public register within the specified timeframe.

These were two tickets to a congress event totalling $1800 and two tickets to a conference event, worth a total of $2000.

Treasury's own guidelines require officials to consider the potential conflict of interest risks that could arise from accepting hospitality.

A consideration of this potential risk had not been documented by Treasury in the four instances of hospitality, the audit found.

The audit office recommended Treasury updates its public registers to record the eight gifts and benefits, which the Treasury agreed to do.

It was one of four recommendations made by the ANAO, all of which were agreed to by Treasury.

There were also four instances of gifts, benefits and hospitality provided by Treasury that were not compliant with the relevant policies.

These were all related to budget night events and totalled more than $34,000.

In one instance, official hospitality valued at $14,990 was provided for a budget night event in March 2022 held by the Treasurer's office with no written record of prior approval.

The treasurer at the time was Josh Frydenberg, under the former Coalition government.

The matter, which breached the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, was recorded on the internal non-compliance register.

More than a year later, hospitality valued at $9502 was again provided for a budget-related event hosted by the Treasurer's office with no written pre-approval.

The audit found Treasury was largely compliant with its gifts, benefits and hospitality requirements.

Its shortcomings, the report noted, related to the alignment of internal policy to APSC requirements, training and its processes in detecting non-compliance.

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The ANAO noted Treasury completed an internal audit in 2022, which resulted in the Financial Framework Assurance Plan.

"It includes a specific reference that Treasury made a decision not to implement detective controls in relation to gifts," the audit report noted.

At the time of the internal audit, Treasury did not consider the risks associated with gifts warranted proactive testing.

The ANAO recommended Treasury reassess the risks associated with accepting gifts and consider whether further controls are required to monitor and report on compliance.

This was agreed to by the department.