The arrival of the new normal of the economy and the proposal of high-quality economic development goals in the new era put forward higher requirements for the operation and development of central enterprises. As an important part of national governance, government audit has a major impact on the operation and management of listed companies of central enterprises. This article takes all listed companies controlled by central enterprises in China as the research sample from 2010 to 2018, and empirically tests the impact of government audits on the high quality development of enterprises. The study finds that government audit is conducive to promoting high-quality development of enterprises; corporate governance plays an intermediary role in government audit and high-quality development of enterprises. The conclusion is still valid after robustness tests such as difference in differences regression, replacing the measurement of the explained variable and placebo tests. Further analysis also finds that when the quality of enterprise development is high, government audits have a stronger role in promoting high-quality development of enterprises; the greater the intensity of government audits, the more conducive to promoting high-quality development of enterprises.