The Auditor General:

The Auditor-General asks to be advised upon the following question:

Is it consistent with the due discharge of the duties of the Auditor-General of the Commonwealth to accept, without further inquiry, the signature of any person-signing as claimant-on an expenditure account, provided such account is duly certified to by the proper certifying officer?

He refers to Reply No. 1 on the accompanying query (522); to Audit Regulations ⁽¹⁾ No. 37 (d); and to the words 'on the prescribed certificates' in section 41 (c) of the Audit Act.

The query referred to relates to an account by Buckley and Nunn Proprietary Limited for £3 8.10.0 for the supply of messengers' uniforms, and asks the authorising officer of the House of Representatives to furnish power of attorney or other authority for A.B. to sign as claimant on behalf of the said Company.

The reply is as follows:

Mr A.B., Director and Secretary of the firm of Buckley and Nunn Proprietary Limited, is empowered by the articles of association of the Company to sign accounts and receive moneys; he refuses to furnish authority, he having already signed as claimant and receipted the account.

Audit Regulation No. 37(d) provides that certifying officers shall be responsible that the accounts are signed opposite the total amount by the proper claimant.

Section 41 of the Audit Act provides that the Auditor-General shall examine the cash sheet etc. and shall-

(c) ascertain . . . whether the moneys mentioned on the credit side of the cash sheet have been actually and duly disbursed under competent authority and on the prescribed certificates,

(g) ascertain whether the provisions ... of this and any other Act and the regulations have been . . . complied with.

Notwithstanding that the certifying officer is responsible for the proper person signing as claimant the Auditor-General has full power to inquire, whenever he thinks necessary, whether the claimant is entitled to payment. On the other hand, he is not under any obligation, where there is nothing to raise a doubt in his mind, to verify every signature or identify every claimant. The question whether in any particular case he ought to make inquiries is a question, not of law, but of discretion.⁽²⁾

[Vol. 2, p. 377]

(1) Regulations respecting Public Moneys, published in Commonwealth of Australia Gazette 1902, No. 5, p. 26.

(2) This opinion was published in Commonwealth of Australia, Pari Papers 1904, Vol. II, p. 1170.