Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence. The minister may be aware of a front page report in today's Adelaide Advertiser that Rossi Boots, an Adelaide based bootmaker since 1910, has lost a tender for the supply of up to 100,000 pairs of boots for the ADF over the next five years. In a briefing from the Defence Materiel Organisation last week, Rossi Boots was advised that the boots would be imported because the imports represent 'better value for money'. Can the minister advise whether the DMO considered the social and economic benefits of having these boots—up to 100,000 pairs of boots—being made in Australia, including the benefits of local jobs, personal local taxes paid and the attendant multiplier effects on the local economy? If not, will the minister seek to reopen the tender process?