Police Procurement

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (14:51): My question is to the Minister for Police. Can the minister confirm that SA Police have outsourced their removals tender process to a company in New South Wales? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr ELLIS: I wrote to the minister on 4 February advising him of a removalist from my electorate who has been doing police relocations for years. In around February, he found the tenders suddenly being conducted by a new company from Sydney and their demands becoming too taxing for his business. I have not yet had a response to that letter.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Police) (14:52): I thank the member for Narungga for raising this issue, because he's right. The way in which the removalist contracts are being managed by South Australia Police, I am advised, changed late last year, I think it was, and a company based outside of South Australia in New South Wales, as the member said, coordinates the removalist processes. This has caused understandable problems for local removalists who were previously supplying these services because, while they are still technically able to provide the removalist services, the way in which the company in New South Wales is putting those requirements out to the local market has been extremely difficult for local service providers to navigate.

As a result of the representations of the member for Narungga, it is something that I have raised directly with the police commissioner and he has asked his procurement staff to look at this. I understand that there is another opportunity coming up in a few months' time to revisit this contractual arrangement and see if we can go back to a regime that provides the constituents the member for Narungga is representing with much better and easier access to providing the services for South Australia Police that they were previously. Thank you to the member for raising it. Hopefully we can get some positive action as a result of his representations.