Page 4777 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 1 November 2017

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procurement thresholds. It is not removing the $25,000 threshold, as was implied by Mr Coe in his contribution.

Mr Coe has been actively misleading this place in those comments. The threshold of $25,000 remains in place by the Government Procurement Regulation 2007. That is the fact of the matter. He can have alternative views, but he cannot have alternative facts. That is what he has been doing in this debate, and it is consistent with a pattern of behaviour by the opposition leader to make up his own facts. We will debate that more tomorrow but, in this instance, it is a straightforward amendment, and I commend it to the Assembly.

MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (11.03): The Chief Minister alleges that I have misled the chamber. That is, of course, a serious charge in this place. However, he is wrong because amendment No 4 clearly omits the amount and puts in a prescribed amount. As I said, this will give the government the ability to choose the figure. So we will be removing the $25,000 from this legislation. It will not be in this legislation; it will then go to regulation, and the government controls the regulation. The Assembly controls the legislation, but the government controls the regulation. To that end I am absolutely right: the government is going to remove a figure and put in a prescribed amount; in effect, a reference to another document.

As I have already said, we should be leaving a figure in there and we should be changing that figure to $12,500. It is a simple query that is involved and I would very much welcome Ms Le Couteur’s contribution to this amendment to justify why she thinks that query cannot be done.

Question put:

That amendment No 4 be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 5.

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