The Auditor-General responded on 6 April 2023 to correspondence from Senator Andrew Bragg dated 8 March 2023, requesting that the Auditor-General conduct an investigation into the costs of the ongoing legal dispute concerning the Commonwealth and Dr Monique Ryan MP. The Auditor-General responded on 11 May 2023 to follow-up correspondence from Senator Bragg dated 18 April 2023, requesting a timeline for finalisation of the 2022–23 financial statements audit of the Department of Finance.

The Auditor-General responded on 15 December 2023 regarding the ANAO enquiries and that the results are published in the Auditor-General Report No.9 (2023-24) Audits of the Financial Statements of Australian Government Entities ended 30 June 2023 that tabled in the Parliament on 14 December 2023.

The objective of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of Agriculture’s and Customs’ arrangements for the targeting and screening of incoming international mail to identify prohibited and restricted goods.

The audit objective was to determine whether Australian Government agencies were implementing appropriate policies and processes to identify and manage conflicts of interest.

The objective of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy’s administration of the Household Assistance Scheme.

The audit objective was to assess the effectiveness of DoHA’s administration in supporting the creation and development of health infrastructure from the HHF, including DoHA’s support for the Health Minister and the HHF Advisory Board.

The audit objective was to assess the effectiveness of the selected entities:

• management of the delivery of projects awarded funding under four programmes where ANAO has previously audited the application assessment and selection processes; and
• development and implementation of evaluation strategies for each of those programmes.

The audit objective was to assess the effectiveness of monitoring arrangements (by the Accreditation Agency) and compliance activities (by DoHA) put in place to achieve residential aged care homes’ compliance with the Accreditation Standards and their other, related, responsibilities under the Act and its associated instruments.

The ANAO’s assessment considered whether:

— a sector-wide compliance strategy was in place and aligned with effective monitoring and compliance activities at the operational level;
— there was a clear articulation of the separat but complementary roles and responsibilities of DoHA and the Accreditation Agency; and
— performance information gathered by both agencies to support public reporting and business improvements was useful and enabled comparison of performance over time.

This audit was a follow-on to Audit Report No.21 1997-98 Protective Security, which reviewed, among other things, information security other than computer and communications security, against the policy and procedures outlined in the 1991 PSM. That audit found inconsistencies in the identification and marking of classified information and weaknesses in the handling and storage of classified information, as well as other breakdowns impacting on information security.

The overall objective of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of Refresh and, in particular:

• the extent to which Centrelink has used the funds invested by the Government to develop its IT capability and realise the anticipated service delivery, financial and other benefits; and
• how Centrelink's programme management approach and Refresh's oversight arrangements have contributed to the achievement of the outcomes of the programme.

The audit objective was to assess selected agencies’ compliance with the four mandatory ICT security strategies and related controls in the Australian Government Information Security Manual.