Tag: queensland audit office
-
Ethics fears over Queensland departments’ AI policies
The Department of Transport could be breaching Queenslanders’ privacy, a report has found, over its failure to identify ethical risks in AI image-recognition technology. A Queensland Audit Office report into a departments, including The Department of Customer Services, Open Data and Small and Family Business (CDSB) and the Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR),…
-
Auditor zeroes in on programs meant to protect kids from domestic violence
The state was failing to act proactively on the “intergenerational transmission of violence”, and there were few services for children and adolescents, the Queensland Audit Office report said. Young people exposed to domestic and family violence were more likely to have poor mental and physical health, struggle with school and experience behaviour issues, it noted.…
-
State’s emergency departments struggle even before COVID hits
Queensland today reported one new locally-acquired case of COVID-19 in a 15-year-old girl who attends St Thomas More College in Sunnybank. That cluster now has eight cases, in four of some 1,000 families now in home quarantine. Yet compared to southern states, Queensland continues to record low numbers of COVID-19 infections, and even fewer people…
-
Corruption watchdog’s plan to shine a light on public sector agencies
In its two-year corruption audit plan, released today, the CCC has outlined how it is looking at the use of public resources and whether any misuse is criminal or unethical. “Public agencies should not assume that employees will make sound judgements, particularly when their personal interests are at stake,” the plan states. “The risk of…
-
Drag net: Qld’s school internet standard 200 times slower than NSW
According to the QAO report, tabled in State Parliament today, Queensland’s benchmark for internet speed is currently 25 kilobits per second (kbps) per student. “This is well below other states and is 200 times lower than the New South Wales benchmark,” the report found. While rural and remote schools are less likely to have fibre…
-
Maybe the $800m Advance Qld plan was money well spent – but we’ll never know
The Palaszczuk Government has invested more than $800 million in its flagship Advance Queensland economic development strategy over the past six years. Is it money well spent? We may never know. The Queensland Audit Office announced last month it had cancelled a long-scheduled audit of Advance Queensland’s activities to better concentrate on assessing COVID-19’s impact…
-
Full as a state school hat rack – growth puts the heat on more students
The Queensland Government Statistician’s Office has projected the population of school-aged children will increase by 26 per cent over the next 20 years. However, the increase will not be uniform across the state, with Ipswich set to grow by 78 per cent while outback Queensland experiences a decline of 11 per cent. The Queensland Audit…
-
Auditor-General urges virus-hit schools and unis to do things differently
In a report on the sector, and tabled in State Parliament today, the Queensland Audit Office found some institutions fared much better than others last year. For example, all grammar schools increased their revenue – and six of the eight actually improved their operating result in 2020. “However, significant Commonwealth COVID-19 relief payments were received…
-
Auditor-General set to probe Queensland’s ballooning public debt
Dick was in parliament yesterday defending Labor’s management of state finances and warning the budget would have been worse under the Liberal National Party. He insisted Queensland had a better plan than the Commonwealth, despite having to borrow billions of dollars more than anticipated. “We are not going to project never-ending deficits with no plan…