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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-05-01 Daily Xml
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ICT CONTRACTS

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (14:12): My question is again to the Premier. Has the government's cost-saving ICT deal for a network management contract with Dimension Data come in at $4.52 million—double the price of the previous contract—costing the Health Department an unbudgeted $2.18 million, a figure confirmed in the same documents obtained under FOI?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations) (14:12): I will get a report back to the house. I am proud to report the ongoing breaking news that the great work of the Minister for Infrastructure—

Ms Portolesi: I wouldn't go that far.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: You wouldn't go that far? We have renegotiated ICT contracts from the former government under its all-of-government outsourcing deal to EDS. We all remember the EDS contract with great fondness.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: We're still losing money on the building.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Oh, that's very good. We can remember how the EDS contract negotiation for the building—on which we are losing money—was used as an instrument by the drivers in the Liberal Party to knife Dean Brown and bring him down. The deputy leader is nodding her head. She is right. It was the then Premier Dean Brown who wanted to see a crane in the sky. We, in government, of course, get cranes in the sky through good economic management. The Liberals got a crane in the sky by entering into a subsidy deal with EDS that locked us into the most expensive office accommodation that this state had ever seen at that time. So, if you want to talk about losing money on an IT deal, have a look at that one.

What I can say is that this government is very, very good when it comes to renegotiation of Liberal blunders. Our renegotiation with IT outsourcing—and I am happy to get the exact figure for the house—is on track to deliver to this government a $30 million per year saving on ICT costs. We are doing a lot to run this economy well. Not only are we managing the economy well on all fronts—be they mining, defence, the AAA credit rating—we are also managing internal costs very well.

We are taking bad Liberal contracts and we are turning them into good Labor contracts. I am happy if the leader would like to ask more questions about EDS, because I had a pivotal role in those days in assisting the Liberal dries to bring down the then premier, Dean Brown. I think things then turned around and the wets helped you, Premier, and Patrick and others to bring down John Olsen. It was a sort of mutual elimination pact between the factions over there. It did make for an interesting period in opposition, didn't it? Please, ask me more and more questions about EDS; I love them.

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