The Auditor-General Act 2009 requires us to set and table in parliament standards by which we perform our audits.
These standards, known as the Auditor-General Auditing Standards, require the adoption of standards issued by the Australian Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (AUASB) to the extent they are consistent with the requirements of the Auditor-General Act 2009.
The standards issued by the AUASB set out the basic principles and essential procedures to be applied in order to ensure that audits are planned and performed in a manner that will support the opinion or conclusion expressed by the auditor and comply with relevant ethical requirements.
Our mandate
The Act governs the powers and functions of the Auditor-General. It provides the legal basis for the Auditor-General’s access to all government information and the freedom to report findings arising from audit reports.
The main objectives of the Auditor-General Act 2009 are to:
- establish the position of the Queensland Auditor-General and the Deputy Auditor-General
- establish the Queensland Audit Office (QAO)
- confer on the Queensland Auditor-General and QAO the functions and powers necessary to carry out independent audits of the Queensland public sector and related entities
- provide for the strategic review of QAO
- provide for the independent audit of QAO.
The Act promotes the independence of the Auditor-General and all authorised auditors. This means the Auditor-General may conduct an audit in any way considered appropriate and is not subject to direction by any person about the way audit powers are to be exercised.