Page 5058 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 26 October 2011
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government tenders and contracts are structured to allow small business to compete. What the Greens have added to this is to allow social enterprises to also compete for government business. We think this is an emerging issue. It is very small, emerging from a small base, but it is emerging from a small base in the ACT. It is somewhere where government money can basically do things twice. Government can get the services they need and they can support the social outcome. This can be incredibly good value for money from a government point of view and incredibly good value for money from society’s point of view. After all, we are here to govern for the sake of society as a whole, not just the government’s convenience.
Part (c) is different from the Liberals’ motion. We have said:
… include in the Annual Report Directions a requirement to publish the number of invoices paid within 30 days of receipt and the number paid in longer than 30 days, together with the average value of overdue invoices in agency annual reports …
The Liberal Party was asking to do this quarterly. I know that the Liberal Party has also been the party that has said that the Greens are going for far too much red tape, reporting, processes, regulations and blah, blah, blah. But that is not necessarily true, Mr Smyth. The Greens are trying to look at what is a reasonable requirement, what would be useful to the Assembly without being too onerous for reporting. We think that annual reporting would make more sense than quarterly reporting. I do not think that quarterly reporting should be necessary.
With (d) we are changing the timing. It says:
… table a list of the number of current invoices by directorate that have been outstanding for more than 30 days, together with the average value as at 31 October 2011, by—
we suggested—
Thursday 17 November 2011 …
We have to give the government time to do the work. There is simply no point in asking them to do something which they really cannot do. I cannot see how it is going to inconvenience the Assembly significantly if we have to wait until November to get this information. I for one, and the Greens, will look at this information with interest on 17 November and we will not be disadvantaged by waiting for that short time.
The last part of Mr Smyth’s motion says:
… the Auditor-General will conduct compliance audits …
I do not believe that it is appropriate for the Assembly to direct the Auditor-General in what she should do, so I think that point 2(d) is not appropriate. However, given that it is, by the government’s figures, only 85 per cent of invoices that are paid on time, I think there is a point in the Assembly requesting that the Auditor-General should consider whether or not a compliance audit on this issue is warranted. So we have suggested a changed to (3) to read as follows:
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