Page 978 - Week 04 - Thursday, 3 May 2007

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thousands, if not millions, of procurement decisions are made every year, not by this government alone, and the potential for corruption in this context is unavoidable. Corruption can take many forms from blatant bribery or fraud to improper use of insider information or undisclosed conflicts of interest. Any changes in procurement practices have to be very closely monitored to ensure that they do not provide cover for corruption.

There have been a number of occasions where territory entities have gone off the rails with their procurement and spending decisions, and the review that has spawned these amendments is partially the product of the hospital implosion and Bruce Stadium fiascos. Rhodium Asset Solutions is a more recent example but I am concerned that being an entity established under the Corporations Act an organisation like Rhodium is exempt from the provisions of the Procurement Act. Simply put, it should not be exempt. With a few necessary modifications, these whole-of-life costing, ethical behaviour and other triple bottom line practices should be a mandatory requirement for all publicly owned government entities.

New section 39 also saves the Auditor-General’s resources by requiring territory entities to report directly to the appropriate committee. This seems to be a sensible proposal, but I note the risk that the committee’s already overstretched resources may be diluted if entities fail to provide the information in the required form. Under the existing provisions the Auditor-General’s office stood as a quality control mechanism between agencies and the committee.

I am not fully aware of the implications of proposed section 25 (2) (a) which lowers the threshold for a notifiable contract from $50,000 to $20,000 but I suspect it could also impact on the possible work load of the committee. It may never become a problem but I wonder whether the government should not either dedicate more resources to the committee secretariat or implement some mechanism for the committee to recoup any resources wasted in compliance enforcement activities.

I will be supporting this bill.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Detail stage

Bill, by leave, taken as a whole.

MR MULCAHY (Molonglo) (5.49): I move amendment No 1 circulated in my name [see schedule 2 at page 990].

My amendment deals with the one area of concern with this bill which I believe does have implications of concern for the rule of law in the territory. Under the bill, new section 22A, subsection 3 (a), of the amended act will mandate the consideration of ethical behaviour in the procurement principles. Territory entities will be required to ensure that the suppliers engage in ethical behaviour.


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