Annual Report 2015

Financial Statements of Waikato River Authority

for the period ended 30 June 2015

Waikato River Authority

Independent Auditor’s Report

to the readers of

Waikato River Authority’s financial statements for

the year ended 30 June 2015

The Auditor General is the auditor of Waikato River Authority (the Authority). The Auditor

General has appointed me, B H Halford, using the staff and resources of Audit New Zealand,

to carry out the audit of the financial statements of the Authority on her behalf.

Opinion on the financial statements

We have audited the financial statements of the Authority on pages 16 to 26, that

comprise the statement of financial position as at 30 June 2015, the statement of

comprehensive revenue and expense, statement of changes in equity and statement of

cash flows for the year ended on that date and the notes to the financial statements that

include accounting policies and other explanatory information.

In our opinion:

• the financial statements of the Authority:

• present fairly, in all material respects:

• its financial position as at 30

June 2015;

• its financial performance and cash flows for the year then ended; and

• comply with generally accepted accounting practice in New Zealand and have

been prepared in accordance with the Public Benefit Entity Standards with reduced

disclosure requirements.

Our audit was completed on 8 October 2015. This 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 Board and our responsibilities, and explain our independence.

Basis of opinion

We carried out our audit in accordance with the Auditor General’s Auditing Standards,

which incorporate the International Standards on Auditing (New Zealand). Those standards

require that we comply with ethical requirements and plan and carry out our audit to

obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free from

material misstatement.

Material misstatements are differences or omissions of amounts and disclosures that,

in our judgement, are likely to influence readers’ 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.

An audit involves carrying out procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts

and disclosures in the financial statements. The procedures selected depend on our

judgement, including our assessment of risks of material misstatement of the financial

statements, whether due to fraud or error. In making those risk assessments, we consider

internal control relevant to the preparation of the Authority’s financial statements in

order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the

purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the Authority’s internal control.

An audit also involves evaluating:

• the appropriateness of accounting policies used and whether they have been

consistently applied;

Restoring and protecting the health and wellbeing of the Waikato River