Page 5285 - Week 17 - Thursday, 13 December 1990
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MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (9.47): Mr Deputy Speaker, I suppose perseverance pays off, and Mr Berry has hit the jackpot. The Government will be supporting the amendment proposed to clause 51(1).
Ms Follett: What took you so long? All the others were just as good.
Mr Connolly: All things come to those who wait.
MR HUMPHRIES: He almost talked me out of it, but I thought we would accept it in the end. So, the amendment to clause 51(1) is accepted; however, not the amendment adding subclause (3) to clause 51. He has a rather strange expression for that. He has here "clause 51(1), page 17 insert a new paragraph". I think he means just clause 51. Making that assumption, I do not think we can support that position, for several very simple reasons, Mr Deputy Speaker.
With respect to tendering, the Government already has a purchasing policy, and it is a policy with which Mr Berry presumably is familiar, since he has sat on these benches. The purchasing policy sets out the procedures which should be undertaken by all Government authorities when purchasing goods and materials. What Mr Berry is doing is setting in place here a particular requirement for a particular purchasing policy. In the first place, he is setting that policy in legislation, which is not, I would have thought, a sensible idea, because, given that these things do change from time to time, it would have to be amended whenever that occurred. If purchasing policies were set out in the creation of every statutory authority or semi-government organisation, we would be forever in this place amending minor provisions that deal with such things as tendering policies. So, for a very good reason, we do not put details of tendering policies into legislation, as Mr Berry was in office long enough to realise.
But, certainly, even if we did, to set a limit of $2,000 would be, with respect, an absolute administrative nightmare. In general, the threshold for tendering, for advertising the purchase of services, is $50,000. Why ought it to be $50,000 for every other part of the administration - and I assume that was the case when Mr Berry was Minister ostensibly - and only $2,000 in respect of the ACT Board of Health? No reason is given by Mr Berry. Presumably he operated under the $50,000 limit when he was Minister. I ask him to answer this question when he speaks again: why is it that we should accept $2,000 in this case when he himself accepted the $50,000 limit when he was in office?
Before I finish, Mr Deputy Speaker, Mr Berry did mention today and yesterday - there is a fair bit of repetition going on here - that there was a case which would not have happened had this legislation been in force, and he
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