Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Kroger for her question. The government is committed to value-for-money procurement and wishes to see maximum Australian industry participation in government purchasing. The Australian government has a number of programs to assist Australian companies become more competitive. Firms of the TCF industries benefit from industry specific programs supporting innovation and investment such as the TCF Strategic Investment Program and generally available programs such as Enterprise Connect. These programs boost competitiveness and therefore assist companies to win government contracts as well as private contracts.

The Commonwealth promotes Australian industry participation and supports the Industry Capability Network to help ensure Australian industry gets full, fair and reasonable opportunities to bid for Australian private sector business. I understand that the Department of Defence also has an Australian industry capability requirement that facilitates access to opportunities for local manufacturers. The defence department’s policy requires tenders for large contracts to demonstrate that local industry has been provided with supply chain opportunities. However, the eventual procurement decisions are made on the basis of the individual tender arrangements.

We have a situation where the senator is asking me to propose that there be a resolution of a tender arrangement before that tender process has been concluded. I remind the senator that these are decisions for the defence department, not the department of innovation, and that we will not be pre-empting proper tender arrangements. (Time expired)