Public Accounts

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26121, 25 May 1950, Page 4

Public Accounts

Mr Nash overstepped the bounds of propriety in his comment on the Prime Minister’s review of the Public Accounts. He is entitled to disagree with Mr Holland on how the accounts should be presented to the public—they disagreed on this question many times when their roles were reversed—and he is entitled to express his opinions. But he is not entitled to criticise, even by implication, the Treasury officials who prepared the figures or the Audit Department which checked them. Mr Nash’s assertion that Mr Holland, instead of ing “ recognised practice ”, “ appar- “ ently arranged with the Treasury “ —with the approval of Audit—” to present the figures in another way will suggest to many minds that the Treasury and the Audit Department have been parties to something reprehensible, or at least irregular. Nothing could be further from the truth. The “ Abstract of

‘‘ the Revenue and Expenditure of “ the Public Account of New Zea- “ land ”, as it is officially called, is the relevant document for which

these departments accept responsibility—not the Finance Minister’s review of the figures shown in it. In fact, this year’s “ Abstract ” is published in the “ New Zealand “ Gazette ” in exactly the same form as in other years. The form in which the Minister presents them to the public, and his comments on them, are his responsibility alone. The departmental officers are no more responsible for Mr Holland’s public statements than they were for those of his predecessors in office or for their customary large claims on these occasions to exceptional financial acumen and administrative excellence. It is not pleasant to have civil servants —especially those of the Audit Department, which above all must be impartial and absolutely independent—needlessly dragged into a political controversy.