Page 3579 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 8 December 1992
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Rate Notices - Preparation
MR WESTENDE: Madam Speaker, my question without notice is directed to the Minister for Urban Services. Is it correct that Canberra rate notices are prepared in Bankstown? If that is so, why are they not done in the ACT? Does the Minister know the cost of this service in Bankstown?
MR CONNOLLY: I am not sure where the notices are printed; but I certainly know the answer to the basic policy question, and that is known to the Liberal Party as well. That is that the ACT Government, like every other State and Territory government and the Commonwealth Government, is a signatory to an intergovernmental agreement on preferences, which basically says that all State and Territory governments will not give preference in their tendering arrangements to a locally based firm. This has been discussed a couple of times in the life of the First Assembly by the Estimates Committee, and I think there has been general acceptance on both sides of the house that we benefit as a result of that.
The ACT is in a position where ACT companies supply a lot of work to the Commonwealth Government because they are local and they can get close to the buyers and meet the buyers' needs. If there were not that no-preference agreement, there could be a temptation for Ministers of whatever political persuasion to make sure that all the work in their agencies got done in their electorates. One could imagine such a level of cynicism in Ministers. The preference agreement ensures that no local preference can be introduced, but the tender process goes through and the lowest priced tender gets it. I do not know the price of that particular tender. I will find out, but I assume that it was awarded because it was the lowest priced tender.
While we cannot give an open preference, what we can do is ensure that ACT firms get the opportunity to compete for ACT Government work. We have put in place as a result of this budget the supply and tender agency initiative, which is a process that has been commended very strongly by the Canberra Chamber of Commerce. It ensures that we put together a list, which we put out to local business, of what our purchasing needs will be for the next 12 months. We are encouraging Canberra enterprises to approach the Government and let us know what their supply possibilities are, so that as far as possible when an ACT tender is let a local company gets the opportunity to bid for it. All things being equal, a local company, if it can produce at the quality and price, ought to get the job. But we cannot have an express preference to local firms. If we did, we would be out of that agreement and, on balance, the ACT would lose.
MR WESTENDE: Madam Speaker, I ask a supplementary question. I did not mean the printing of the notices; I meant the preparation, the addressing, the whatnot. I would agree with the Minister about the printing; but it would appear that the actual preparation, the filling in of the amounts and so on, is done in Bankstown, not here.
MR CONNOLLY: Again, a tender has been let for the provision of a service, which could include the stuffing of the envelopes and the posting of them, and that, again, is caught by the no-preference clause.
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