Audit Report

To the readers of Ministry of Fisheries Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 2006

The Auditor-General is the auditor of the Ministry of Fisheries (the Ministry). The Auditor-General has appointed me, Grant J Taylor, using the staff and resources of Ernst & Young, to carry out the audit of the financial statements of the Ministry, on his behalf, for the year ended 30 June 2006.

Unqualified Opinion

In our opinion the financial statements of the Ministry on pages 20 to 65:

• comply with generally accepted accounting practice in New Zealand; and
• fairly reflect:
  • the Ministry's financial position as at 30 June 2006;
  • the results of its operations and cash flows for the year ended on that date;
  • its standards of delivery performance achieved, as compared with the forecast standards outlined in the statement of forecast service performance adopted at the start of the financial year and its actual revenue earned and output expenses incurred, as compared with the forecast revenues and output expenses outlined in the statement of forecast service performance adopted at the start of the financial year; 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 2006.

The audit was completed on 29 September 2006, 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 Chief Executive 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 Chief Executive;
• 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 or statement of service performance.

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 Chief Executive and the Auditor

The Chief Executive is responsible for preparing financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting practice in New Zealand. The financial statements must fairly reflect the financial position of the Ministry as at 30 June 2006 and the results of its operations and cash flows for the year ended on that date. The statement of service performance must fairly reflect, for each class of outputs, the Ministry's standards of delivery performance achieved and revenue earned and expenses incurred, as compared with the forecast standards, revenue and expenses adopted at the start of the financial year. In addition, the schedules of non-departmental activities 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 2006. The Chief Executive's responsibilities arise from sections 45A, 45B and 45(1)(f) of 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 section 45D(2) of 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 carried out assignments in the areas of assessing the impact of the introduction of New Zealand equivalents to International Financial Reporting Standards on the financial statements of the Ministry, which are compatible with those independence requirements. Other than the audit and these assignments, we have no relationship with or interests in the Ministry.

Grant J Taylor
Ernst & Young
On behalf of the Auditor-General
Wellington, New Zealand
29 September 2006