Page 974 - Week 04 - Thursday, 3 May 2007
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I do, however, understand from my own inquiries that there may be a preference for country based New South Wales companies over competitors based in New South Wales cities but that this does not impact on competitors from other jurisdictions. The only other preference contained in their procurement practices is for Australian, New Zealand and United States companies over those based elsewhere. In any case, any preference scheme is constrained by free trade agreements to which the Australian government is a signatory.
In the course of researching the claims provided by Treasury officials in briefings I found that the New South Wales Department of Commerce website still includes the procurement policy framework from 2004 which provides for a country industries preference scheme which gives preferences to country suppliers. I also found references to preference schemes on several other procurements boards around Australia. If these kinds of arrangements are indeed supposed to be rendered void by the free trade agreements, as the Treasury department have assured me is the case, the various procurement boards do not seem to know about it or they are very inefficient in updating their public data.
Again, this is a matter that could have been investigated by the government, had there been sufficient preparation. It would certainly be useful to have some agreement with other jurisdictions that free trade principles will be applied uniformly, and possibly this is something the Chief Minister might take up at a future meeting of COAG to ensure that those principles are left beyond doubt.
We note also the reduction in the threshold for notifiable contracts from $50,000 to $20,000. Provided this does not impose an unreasonable administrative burden on businesses and government agencies this may also be a welcome change. When we establish such reporting systems, as time goes on and agencies adapt to their reporting requirements they should be able to meet these requirements with less and less effort so that lower thresholds for reporting are able to be met without disrupting the functioning of government agencies.
This amendment will be a welcome change to all of those who are concerned with the scrutiny of government spending and holding governments to account.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (5.34): In his presentation speech for this bill the Treasurer said that it details the legislative changes necessary to update the provisions of the Government Procurement Act 2001 and ensure the act’s continuing relevance. That is well and good. The amendments have been presented as very low-key, machinery of government type amendments.
When my office looked at this bill we thought we might have seen evidence of a bold leap forward: at last here was a response to the global climate crisis and a welcome attempt to grab hold of the reins of public sector spending priorities in order to steer us towards that elusive low-energy light on the hill.
The provisions in these amendments that give rise to these hopes are those that direct agencies to take into account the whole-of-life costs of products, including embedded energy and disposal costs and also the ethical behaviour of the businesses they are
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