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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (15 February) . . Page.. 44 ..
MR SPEAKER: Order! There are too many interjections. I think Mr Corbell deserves an answer to his supplementary question, and he deserves to be able to listen to it in silence.
MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, we support an appropriate open tender approach that does give, I suppose, some preference to local companies, but only when all else is equal. Guess why, Mr Speaker? Because the Constitution requires free trade across borders.
Mr Speaker, I have been advised of the background of this whole situation, as Mr Corbell seems to be interested. In December 1999 InTACT issued a request for tender for the provision of a range of human resource services and the provision of all IT management and administrative contractors. The purpose of the RFT was to select, through a competitive process, the services of a single professional staff contracting and human resource company to assist in restructuring the InTACT group and to improve service delivery standards.
Mr Speaker, members of this Assembly have regularly said that they wanted InTACT to improve its level of service to this place. Mr Speaker, you have made those comments, I think, in the past, as have others. So InTACT is following up, Mr Speaker, on requests from members of this place and others.
The process was conducted by the Chief Minister's Department independently of the InTACT group. The major industry players were advised directly of the process prior to the release of the RFT and were also invited to attend a public presentation on the process in December 1999. Throughout the process it was made clear that, if possible, the intention was to select a single supplier under a master vendor agreement, an MVA.
Eight companies submitted tenders, with Interim HR Solutions being selected from a short list of three companies in January this year. Interim HR Solutions has a longstanding and highly respected reputation here in Canberra, including through the operations of its predecessor, the Computer Power Group. The contract with Interim HR Solutions, Mr Speaker, is an exciting opportunity for InTACT and the ACT Government to be at the forefront of major human resource change and to achieve major benefits from this streamlining of the provision of contractors. One of the important things to remember here is that potentially the same contractors will continue to be employed. It just means that the contracting agency may change in many circumstances.
Mr Corbell: Were they bullied or coerced?
MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, it is patently ridiculous to answer a question about coercion or anything else. Of course not, Mr Speaker.
MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Education. I refer to a case last week in the Family Court where a man whom ACT Family Services claimed to be a sex offender had his latest attempt to clear the records rejected. I expect that the Minister is familiar with the case and I will not mention any name. The judge said that he had no power over Family Services and could not order records to be changed. No case against the man has been proved and there is evidence that claims against him were
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