State Government Procurement

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:22): My question is to the Premier as the minister representing the Treasurer. When will steps be implemented to ensure the procurement process for government requisites does not see local suppliers disadvantaged? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms BEDFORD: I refer to The Advertiser article on Friday 24 September headlined, 'Local push in supply chain—new measures to protect industry', which may not really give the full picture, and ask how will the new procurement framework due to take effect from 1 February next year help if government agencies are able to split existing contracts into individual categories, thereby both increasing their regulatory burden for local businesses and decreasing their prospects for success in the overall process?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (15:23): I thank the member for her question. We have had a Productivity Commission inquiry into procurement. Some of the elements of that are being rolled out at the moment. We do want to make it easier for small business to sell their products and their services into the state government. We have had particular success since coming to government in getting contracts to Aboriginal-owned organisations, something that we feel very proud about, but there is more work to be done.

We obviously have the Office of the Industry Advocate in South Australia. Ian Nightingale is in that team and he leads a great team who are there constantly working with smaller businesses in South Australia, helping them to access state government procurement.

Sometimes the very best thing that you can do for a business is to be able to provide them with an order. Some governments focus on grants and others tell us that the best thing that we could do is to make it easier for small business to be able to sell, because an order from the state government is worth far more than just simply a grant. We have heard that message, and we are looking for opportunities to do just that.

With regard to the specific questions asked by the member for Florey, I am happy to get a further detailed answer from the Treasurer in the other place and come back to the house.