{"id":656581,"date":"2026-05-08T00:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/656581\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T00:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:16:09","slug":"queensland-audit-office-finds-poor-bookkeeping-responsible-for-billion-dollars-in-found-assets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/656581\/","title":{"rendered":"Queensland Audit Office finds poor bookkeeping responsible for billion dollars in ‘found assets’"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than a billion dollars’ worth of forgotten roads, footpaths, and drains have been discovered by Queensland councils in the past five years.<\/p>\n

A Queensland Audit Office report found that between the 2020 and 2025 financial years, councils reported $1.34 billion in “found assets”.<\/p>\n

The Local Government 2025\/26 report found systemic weaknesses in the way councils kept track of what they owned.<\/p>\n

Council documents show that last financial year, the City of Gold Coast found $37.4 million in found assets, and another $41.1 million the year prior.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their statements also show $27 million worth of assets were “derecognised” because they had accidentally been counted twice, or no longer existed.<\/p>\n

A council spokesperson said these were minor errors, considering how many assets they owned.<\/p>\n

“The prior period error in 2025 represents approximately 0.17 per cent of [the] council’s $22 billion asset base,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

“While this is small relative to the size of [the] council’s overall asset base, it still needed to be corrected as a prior period error.”<\/p>\n

Forgotten roads\"Cattle<\/p>\n

Logan City Council has owned roads in Beaudesert for 18 years without realising it. (Supplied: Philippa Westerman)<\/p>\n

Logan City Council discovered $35.8 million in found assets in the 2024 financial year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A Logan council spokesperson told 612 ABC Brisbane that this included 83 kilometres of unsealed roads and 8.5 kilometres of concrete pavement.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said this was partly related to Logan’s amalgamation with parts of the Gold Coast and the former Beaudesert Shire in 2008.<\/p>\n

“[The] council continues to strengthen its asset data quality through routine inspection programs, while also progressing a Digital Transformation Program to enhance system integration and support the effective management of the city’s assets,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Last financial year, Sunshine Coast Regional Council discovered $92 million of assets, including local roads, bridges, stormwater, and parks.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson told 612 ABC Brisbane that the council had noticed “differences” between what was on their books and what was on their maps.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The financial year prior, they found another $71 million.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

City of Moreton Bay received $56 million in contributed assets last financial year. (612 ABC Brisbane: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n

The City of Moreton Bay found $16.5 million in found assets in the 2024 financial year.<\/p>\n

A Moreton Bay spokesperson said these were largely “contributed assets”, where ownership changed hands between a developer and the council.<\/p>\n

Developers can be asked to build public infrastructure in exchange for their buildings being approved.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said there could be some lag time between when these assets were built and when they were inspected and accepted into the council’s books.<\/p>\n

“City of Moreton Bay is committed to ensuring the timely accounting of all contributed assets, and it must be understood that the completion of construction and assets do not fit a financial year timeframe,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than a billion dollars’ worth of forgotten roads, footpaths, and drains have been discovered by Queensland councils…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,317496,99,186861,317495,170570,137860,109777,317494],"class_list":["post-656581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-beaudesert-shire","tag-business","tag-city-of-moreton-bay","tag-found-assets","tag-gold-coast-city-council","tag-logan-city-council","tag-queensland-audit-office","tag-sunshine-coast-regional-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}