Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This year's budget was a cracker for Australia and for North Queensland. When Treasurer Joe Hockey delivered his speech, I knew instantly what he was trying to achieve; jobs, opportunity and growth are central to what this government wants to provide. It also fits the narrative of living within your means and doing more with less. We no longer have the rivers of gold from the mining boom and we must adjust. He recognised that we have real issues surrounding our budget sustainability into the future and addressed them with a carefully crafted plan which backs our strengths. We must stretch our tax dollar as far as we can and get as many uses out of it as possible. We must also look at how business is conducted in this country and work with it as much as possible.

Government does not create wealth, but it does supply the infrastructure which facilitates commerce. In particular we need to look at the government tender process across all levels of government so it better reflects the nature of our regions and the nature of business. We need government funds to wash through our economies more than once. Government tenders have become massively complex. My question and the question being asked of me by my business sector is: does this tender process produce better results? It is frustrating when, after forcing compliance with all these items, there is then a 100 per cent weighting on price, making the rest of the tender document worthless other than to disqualify people from participating. This is the bugbear of my city's businesses.

It is my strong belief that the tender process has become convoluted and confused over a long period of time. Instead of the core principles of respect for the taxpayers' dollar and value for money, we seem to have entered a world where centralised decision and conflict resolution processes have outweighed the core tenets of the tender. When you end up with roads for local councils costed at $9 million that end up costing the state government using their own tender mechanism $27 million with not one cent flushing through the local regional economy, it is time to have a fair dinkum think about what we are trying to do here. Are we trying to get the best value from our taxpayer dollar? Are we trying to facilitate commerce on a local, state and national level? Or are we allowing someone in a building in a capital city somewhere in Australia to ensure that his or her job is easier at the expense of the first two questions I posed?

We all have heard stories about the subcontractor who has failed in his bid to secure a part of a tender and who has then been approached to do the work at more than his original price. These stories abound. We have to do better. It does not just affect the big tenders for the major jobs; it is the centralisation of decisions which causes heads to be scratched. When a gearbox has to be wrapped in plastic, put on transport and sent from Townsville to the New South Wales-Victoria border to be repaired, you shake your head. When you have locals who can supply the service quicker and better locally but do not qualify for the work, you know you have a problem. When you have a government fact sheet that shows that the trip to Victoria is more efficient, you know you are in trouble.

What we as a government and supplier of funds must do is simplify the process to allow the local contractors to have a chop at part of the tender. Please do not go down the line that the centralisation of supply and existing tender processes is reducing paperwork. There are entire floors of major businesses now fitted out with tender officers whose job is to ensure that the minutiae of their bid is compliant with the tender document. We have small businesses which can do the work, provide value for money and extend the life of our taxpayer dollar. We owe it to them and all taxpayers to ensure that we are doing our best to maximise value.

The nature of the builder has also changed. It used to be that the builder had tools and was on the job. Today the builder or lead contractor is more of a project manager and does not carry a great deal of risk. All the risk is carried by the subcontractor—through my eyes, anyway. I am pleased to hear that we are moving on unfair contracts with the small business ombudsman and on the nature of government tenders and the exposure that subcontractors experience. It is vitally important that the federal government play a major role in supplying confidence to the business community. I am proud to stand next to my Treasurer and say that we know there is always more to do but we are heading in the right direction and supporting my community. I thank the House.

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