Page 3529 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 2005
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Not all of these devious machinations went entirely unremarked. The procurement process for the market research tender for the improving educational outcomes project, for example, possibly went a little too far even for this government. Correspondence between the manager of the education department’s risk management and audit unit and the deputy chief executive warned that the single/select tender quotation process the department followed contravened the relevant sections of the government’s own procurement guidelines. Among the breaches was a failure to submit a procurement proposal to the department’s approved procurement unit for the exemption from the normal tender process. On top of this, the government apparently sought to have the appropriate exemption approval signed retrospectively.
This had nothing to do with the service provider and the risk management and audit manager quite rightly recommended that payment should be made because the work was undertaken in good faith. What was not in good faith was the government’s readiness to circumvent its own rules. One of the recommendations the manager makes in relation to this dodgy tender is that the chief executive should not sign the approval to use a single/select quotation as the correct procedures have not been followed and it would be a breach of government guidelines.
First the government presents the parents and students of Ginninderra district high school with a fait accompli. Now we learn that they have attempted to treat the law in much the same way. In case anyone is wondering why the government is in such a hurry to build this new monument to collectivism, we need only note that the community engagement study reveals that the department is planning a public launch and open day for the new mega school in September 2008. When is that, Mr Speaker? It is exactly one month before the next election. It is almost paradoxical. A government that did not dare mention the project in October 2004 or in this year’s budget is planning to launch the thing it has been avoiding talking about just before the October 2008 election. It is almost paradoxical, but only if you ignore the fact that the government regards the citizens of Canberra as gullible electoral fodder with a memory as short as the government’s own moral fuse.
Incidentally, in question time on Tuesday this week, the Chief Minister inadvertently clarified what he understands by “consultation”. In response to a question from Mr Mulcahy about an advertisement in the Sunday Times, he indicated that a quarter-page spread, 90 per cent of which consists of government self-promotion, topped off by a notice of a forthcoming forum is, as far as Jon Stanhope is concerned, community consultation. “The Stanhope Labor government,” he said, “could not possibly be charged with engaging in political advertising.” According to our eponymous leader, “We were consulting.”
I suppose it is not quite as dramatic or alarming as: war is peace, freedom is slavery or ignorance is strength, but the Stanhopian newspeak version nevertheless has the same objective as Big Brother. That is Orwell’s Big Brother, not Channel 10’s. The dictionary definition of “consultation”: “to seek information or advice; to seek permission or approval; to take into account” is now substituted by, “We will tell you what we are going to do whether you like it or not.” Mind you, on second thought, ignorance is strength is the kind of slogan that appeals to the Chief Minister in this context, so long as it is other people’s ignorance, and that is ignorance, for example of the government’s
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