Smyth quits post over auditor selection process

Mr Smyth resigned on Friday as deputy chairman of the Public Affairs Committee, saying he was unhappy with the process that saw Maxine Cooper appointed to the Auditor-General's job.

It is not clear what aspects of the process prompted Mr Smyth's move, but he said yesterday that he would make a full statement in the Legislative Assembly next week explaining his resignation.

ACT auditors-general are appointed for fixed, non-renewable seven-year terms and the Auditor-General Act 1996 requires the chief minister to write to the Public Accounts Committee inviting responses to the proposed appointee.

The committee had already threatened in June to veto the appointment of Dr Cooper to the job after Chief Minister Katy Gallagher announced that the long-serving public servant was the Government's choice for the role.

The chairwoman, ACT Greens MLA Caroline Le Couteur, said at the time she would not allow the committee to become a rubber stamp for the Chief Minister's decisions.

But Ms Le Couteur relented in her opposition and Dr Cooper, the territory's former Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment, started work yesterday as the new Auditor-General, replacing Tu Pham, whose seven-year term in the job came to an end in March.

None of the three members of the cross-party committee was willing to discuss Mr Smyth's resignation yesterday, with Ms Le Couteur providing a firm no comment when approached.

Mr Smyth declined to discuss his decision to quit but said through a spokeswoman that he would be making a full statement to the Assembly when it sat again next week.

The Liberal frontbencher said he would give the reasons for his resignation in a full statement to the Legislative Assembly chamber when it next met, on August 16.

The third member of the committee, Labor backbencher John Hargreaves, who will take over as deputy chairman according to the committee's website, also declined to be interviewed.