Audit Report

To the Readers of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s Financial Statements

for the year ended 30 June 2005

The Auditor-General is the auditor of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (the Ministry). The Auditor General has appointed me, John O’Connell, using the staff and resources of Audit New Zealand, to carry out the audit of the financial statements of the Ministry, on his behalf, for the year ended 30 June 2005.

Unqualified opinion

In our opinion the financial statements of the Ministry comprising the Statement of Accounting Policies, Statement of Financial Performance, Statement of Taxpayers’ Funds, Statement of Financial Position, Statement of Cash Flows, Statement of Commitments, Statement of Contingent Liabilities, Statement of Unappropriated Expenditure, Statement of Trust Monies, Statement of Departmental Expenditure and Appropriations, Notes 1 to 20 to the Financial Statements, Non-Departmental Statement and Schedules, Schedule of Non-Departmental Expenses, Statement of Non-Departmental Expenditure and Appropriations, Schedule of Non-Departmental Revenue, Schedule of Non-Departmental Capital Receipts, Schedule of Non-Departmental Assets, Schedule of Non-Departmental Liabilities, Schedule of Non-Departmental Contingent Liabilities, Schedule of Non-Departmental Commitments and the Service Performance:

comply with generally accepted accounting practice in New Zealand; and
fairly reflect:
the Ministry’s financial position as at 30 June 2005;
the results of its operations and cash flows for the year ended on that date; and
its service performance achievements measured against the performance targets adopted for the year ended on that date and
the assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses, contingencies, commitments and trust monies managed by the Ministry on behalf of the Crown for the year ended 30 June 2005.

The audit was completed on 26 September 2005, and is the date at which our opinion is expressed.

The basis of our opinion is explained below. In addition, we outline the responsibilities of the Director-General and the Auditor, and explain our independence.

Basis of opinion

We carried out the audit in accordance with the Auditor-General’s Auditing Standards, which incorporate the New Zealand Auditing Standards.

We planned and performed the audit to obtain all the information and explanations we considered necessary in order to obtain reasonable assurance that the financial statements did not have material misstatements, whether caused by fraud or error.

Material misstatements are differences or omissions of amounts and disclosures that would affect a reader’s overall understanding of the financial statements. If we had found material misstatements that were not corrected, we would have referred to them in our opinion.

The audit involved performing procedures to test the information presented in the financial statements. We assessed the results of those procedures in forming our opinion.

Audit procedures generally include:

determining whether significant financial and management controls are working and can be relied on to produce complete and accurate data;
verifying samples of transactions and account balances;
performing analyses to identify anomalies in the reported data;
reviewing significant estimates and judgements made by the Director-General;
confirming year-end balances;
determining whether accounting policies are appropriate and consistently applied; and
determining whether all financial statement disclosures are adequate.

We did not examine every transaction, nor do we guarantee complete accuracy of the financial statements.

We evaluated the overall adequacy of the presentation of information in the financial statements. We obtained all the information and explanations we required to support our opinion above.

Responsibilities of the Director-General and the Auditor
The Director-General is responsible for preparing financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting practice in New Zealand. Those financial statements must fairly reflect the financial position of the Ministry as at 30 June 2005. They must also fairly reflect the results of its operations and cash flows and service performance achievements for the year ended on that date. In addition, they must fairly reflect the assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses, contingencies, commitments and trust monies managed by the Ministry on behalf of the Crown for the year ended 30 June 2005. The Director-General’s responsibilities arise from the Public Finance Act 1989.

We are responsible for expressing an independent opinion on the financial statements and reporting that opinion to you. This responsibility arises from section 15 of the Public Audit Act 2001 and the Public Finance Act 1989.

Independence

When carrying out the audit we followed the independence requirements of the Auditor General, which incorporate the independence requirements of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand.

In addition to the audit, we have been engaged in an assurance-related assignment to provide a quality assurance review over a financial management system implementation. The assurance-related assignment is compatible with those independence requirements.

Other than the audit and this assignment, we have no relationship with or interests in the Ministry.

John O’Connell
Audit New Zealand
On behalf of the Auditor-General
Wellington, New Zealand

Matters relating to the electronic presentation of the audited financial statements

This audit report relates to the financial statements of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry for the year ended 30 June 2005 included on Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s web site. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s Director-General is responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s web site. We have not been engaged to report on the integrity of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s web site. We accept no responsibility for any changes that may have occurred to the financial statements since they were initially presented on the web site.

The audit report refers only to the financial statements named above. It does not provide an opinion on any other information which may have been hyperlinked to/from these financial statements. If readers of this report are concerned with the inherent risks arising from electronic data communication they should refer to the published hard copy of the audited financial statements and related audit report dated 26 September 2005 to confirm the information included in the audited financial statements presented on this web site.

Legislation in New Zealand governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Contact for Enquiries

Strategy and Performance Group
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Pastoral House
25 The Terrace
PO Box 2526, Wellington

Tel: +64 4 894 0100
Fax: +64 4 894 0738 Contact this person