Smith goes for hat trick of blunders

Nick Smith has got things wrong and made false claims for the second time in just four days.

Smith claims that the Office of the Auditor-General had not given the government advice relating to the recording of climate change related liabilities when it fact it had.

The fact is that in September 2004 the Treasury discussed specifically with the Office of the Auditor-General its proposed approach of not quantifying the Crown's liability under the Kyoto Protocol in the Crown Financial Statements.

Subsequently, the Office of the Auditor-General signed off the Crown's accounts, without qualification, and so agreed with the Treasury's assessment at that time that the Kyoto liability was not yet sufficiently certain to be quantified in the Government's accounts.

"Nick Smith is making a habit of opening his mouth just to put his foot in it. He is showing he knows nothing about either climate change or the way the Crown's finances work," says Acting Convenor of the Ministerial Group on Climate Change Trevor Mallard. "One can only wonder what mistake he'll make to make it three embarrassing blunders in a row."

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