Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to get some additional information on procurement. I encourage the member for Prospect to look at the e-procurement guidelines that I announced and the department released just recently so that he can see what we are doing from a procurement point of view to give some guidance to various departments in the way in which they do procurement electronically. With respect to the other matters you raised, I am happy to follow them up. What I will find is that this level of government is a hell of a lot better at paying its bills than certain other levels of government. In particular, a state health department was holding out on some of my small business people for 90 days and more. It is just appalling that a state health department would not pay its bills for 90 days or more. We will not be taking any guidelines from state departments, that’s for sure, if we review or do anything at a federal level with respect to paying small businesses.

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