Audit Objective
This report summarises the results of our financial audits of the Queensland Government's energy entities.
Overview
In Queensland, most electricity is generated, transmitted, and distributed by state government owned corporations. These include four main energy entities, and 31 subsidiaries including Ergon Energy Queensland.
Stanwell and CS Energy are Queensland's electricity generators. Powerlink transmits electricity from generators to distributors, and owns Queensland's transmission network. Energy Queensland Limited (which includes Ergon Energy and Energex) distributes electricity to consumers from the transmission network using its distribution networks. Electricity retailers, including Ergon Energy Queensland, then purchase electricity and sell it to households and businesses.
Audit results
We issued unmodified audit opinions for the financial statements of each entity. We do this when the financial statements are prepared in accordance with the relevant legislative requirements and Australian accounting standards. In doing so, we confirm that readers can rely upon the audited financial statements of the energy entities. All entities have strong year end close processes that have allowed them to produce high quality financial statements in a timely manner.
We also considered the 'regulatory information notices' Energex and Ergon provided to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER). The AER specifies the income the entities can earn. In doing so, it issues notices for information from the entities. These notices are subject to an audit or review, depending on whether they are based on actual data or estimated data.
We issued six unmodified audit opinions on actual information and six conclusions about estimated data to Energex and Ergon for the regulatory information notices they submitted to AER.
All audits were completed within legislative and AER deadlines.
The energy sector includes 31 government owned corporation subsidiaries. Ergon Energy Queensland is the only government owned corporation subsidiary that prepares separate financial statements. The remainder either have an exemption from the Australian Securities and Investment Commission or are not required to prepare financial statements under the Corporations Act 2001 (as they are dormant or small companies).
