Page 4275 - Week 11 - Thursday, 25 October 2018
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The bill itself will support and enable the secure local jobs package of reforms by clearly defining the types of contract that would be subject to the new arrangements and establishing a secure local jobs certification scheme. It will also set new rules for the procurement and management of government contracts, as I have said, including the labour relations training and workplace equity plan.
Government infrastructure to manage the secure local jobs arrangements, including complaint handling, investigation and appeal mechanisms, is also established under the proposed amendments. These will be supported by a ministerial advisory council established by the bill. The secure local jobs advisory council will have responsibility for reviewing the implementation of the overall package and advising on the operation of measures under the package.
The bill will allow for the making of the secure local jobs code. A consultation draft code has been the subject of extensive consultation. The code will complement the bill by setting out the new obligations, apply to tenderers and contractors and provide operational details about how to obtain a secure local jobs certificate.
Members would be aware that the bill, as others have mentioned, was the subject of a committee inquiry. I would like to again thank the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Tourism for its careful consideration of the bill and for its agreed recommendations, all of which have been either agreed to or agreed to in principle.
I would also like to again take the opportunity to thank those who made submissions and appeared before the committee, and in particular those who are represented here today: United Voice and the workers who took time out of their own time to come and present evidence before the committee.
In the period since the committee commenced its review the government had the opportunity also to consult closely with industry groups, trade unions and other stakeholders about how the new arrangements would operate in practice. In the course of this consultation we identified three improvements of a technical nature. One was proposed by the scrutiny committee. These are addressed by the government amendments that have been circulated.
These amendments are, firstly, replacement of the term “procurement proposal”, which is used at various points in the bill to describe the process of tender design, issue and assessment, with the term “procurement”. This change is necessary due to the fact that the term “procurement proposal” is used more narrowly elsewhere in the Government Procurement Act to describe the pre-tender assessment stages of a procurement process. Replacing these references with the broader term “procurement” addresses this and will allow the bill to be implemented as intended while avoiding confusion arising from any inconsistency of language.
The second amendment is also of a technical nature and is necessary to ensure that the bill operates as planned. The new arrangements are not intended to apply to contracts for certain professional services. These excluded professional services were identified during a comprehensive consultation process and are described in the draft
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