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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-07-25 Daily Xml
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GOVERNMENT STATIONERY CONTRACT

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (14:44): I have a supplementary. Doesn't that mean, then, minister, that the tender documents did not require exclusivity?

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN (Napier—Minister for Finance, Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:44): I am not sure whether the member for Davenport follows the logical thread here. We go to tender on the assumption that there will be two successful tenderers, because we want to maintain an environment of competitiveness. So, we cannot indicate to those tendering that there will be exclusivity. The false impression cannot be created that one sole company will get the whole-of-government contract.

My understanding is that at some stage after the receipt—it may have been before, but after the receipt of the tender documents and the short-listing it was made patently clear to those companies that had been shortlisted (and I believe there were four of them) that only two would be ultimately successful. Then they had to, in the second stage, indicate clearly what they could do by way of price, quality and service to distinguish them from the others in that stage of the tender process. So, no undertaking that there would only be one successful tenderer.

We did not include in the tender document any mention of exclusivity, but we also indicated that we reserved our option to basically not accept any of the tenders if we believed that they did not give an outcome to government which saw significant savings, and we got a 26 per cent improvement in the cost of stationery to government as a result of this process, an improvement in quality and an improvement in service. As I said yesterday, Shared Services, as a matter of course, have gone and surveyed whole of government and the response has been that government departments are more than happy with the level of service they have received.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hammond is warned for the first time and the member for Heysen is warned for the second time. The Minister for Finance, are you finished?

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN: I have concluded, yes.

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