Page 2879 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 29 June 2011
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My amendment would remove references to preferential treatment, reinforce the notion of a competitive economy, and require the government, in developing its policy—or, perhaps more correctly, refining its policy, because the policy does already exist though there is some implication from the Greens’ motion that the policy is not there—in this area to ensure that its policy respects the requirements of the relevant legislation cited in my amendment. It may be that we have to move to insert some of these things, because we do have to take account of the fact that there is a regulatory structure in the ACT government processes that underpins procurement at all levels.
The second element of my amendment is to remove the wordy and highly prescriptive but limited actions called for by Ms Hunter. Again, the Chief Minister’s amendment does to some extent address that. Of most concern with these actions is that they are process driven. They are all about processes. They make assumptions about the kinds of work that can actually be done in any realistic, efficient or effective way within government. They make assumptions that the administration is not capable of coming up with strategies of their own. And they fail to allow for other strategies that the administration might have available to them or indeed the ability of the administration to innovate in those areas.
The amendment that I will move later calls for action from the government in a more general sense, leaving the scope and extent of those actions largely open to the administration to allow the administration to achieve the best possible outcomes. The take-out message from both the Chief Minister’s amendment and my foreshadowed amendment is that Ms Hunter’s list of tasks at paragraph (3) are overly prescriptive.
Importantly, my foreshadowed amendment allows scope to the government and the administration to achieve outcomes and not just outputs, as is the current construction of Ms Hunter’s motion. It also brings forward the reporting timetable so that the Assembly is informed of the progress of these actions by the end of 2011 instead of June 2012. Much of the work that needs to be done in response to the action called for in the motion can be done in the allowed time frame, and will provide an opportunity for any changes in the strategy the Assembly might then consider necessary to be put in place at an earlier time.
This motion is to some extent a non-motion. It achieves nothing new because the government already has a range of strategies in place to implement the principles that everyone agrees we should implement. The motion as it stands currently is anticompetitive and overly prescriptive. I understand Ms Hunter’s wish to give the government a gentle push to be more active in promoting and implementing the social procurement principles, but I think that she fails to do so, and the extent of the amendments proposed by either the Chief Minister or me would demonstrate that.
For the most part, the Chief Minister’s amendment does most of what my amendment does. My only concern is that I think the reporting timetable should be brought forward a little. I would be interested in a discussion on that issue. Then I will consider whether I will move part or all of my amendment a little later in the song.
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