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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 11 Hansard (14 December) . . Page.. 3171 ..

1.1 The Government undertook to advise the Assembly in the December 1995 sitting of the status of the Assembly Motion on French products.

1.2 Members will recall that some products were exempted from the policy, namely those goods for which no alternative source is available, including essential supplies required by the Territory which can only be obtained from French owned companies.

1.3 As a direct result of the Assembly motion, ACT Government departments, agencies, statutory authorities and other instrumentalities will no longer knowingly enter into contractual arrangements with French owned companies (including those with French controlling interests), or purchase French manufactured products and those with French components, or purchase products and services supplied by French owned (or controlled) firms.

2. Action

2.1 On 6 November 1995, the Department of Urban Services issued an ACT Government Procurement Circular advising all agencies of the new policy in regard to the purchase of French goods.

2.2 The ACT Government Solicitors Office has prepared clauses for inclusion in all new tender and contractual documents which places the onus on the firms tendering to provide information on any French products or ownership related to their tender.

2.3 An initial list of French companies has been compiled and will be progressively updated as Agencies become aware of additional companies.

3. Status

3.1 To date only one agency has applied for an exemption to the policy to enable them to purchase French products.

3.2 An exemption was granted by the Chief Executive, Department of Urban Services which enabled ACT Land, to purchase SPOT digital image data valued at $9,000.00 which is produced from the SPOT satellite which is owned by a French firm SPOT Image Corporation. An exemption was granted because of the high resolution of the SPOT satellite data and the fact it is the only such data source world wide.

4. Report

4.1 I intend to report to the Assembly on a quarterly basis on the progress and effects of the motion.

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