House debates

Thursday, 19 March 2009

Questions without Notice

Workplace Relations

3:46 pm

Photo of Julia GillardJulia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

This audit report deals with the shadowy work of the Ministerial Committee on Government Communications in relation to the Work Choices advertising campaign. The report finds things that it says are deeply disturbing, including the following: contracts not signed prior to work commencing, budgets blown out by huge amounts without authorisation, poor documentation and sometimes no documentation.

Then this audit report reveals the Liberal Party all-stars being involved in this campaign—Liberal Party connections such as Dewey & Horton and Brandmark all receiving substantial contracts through deeply flawed processes. The report says:

As the contract with Dewey & Horton was not finalised until after the completion of all major elements of the campaign, the contract manager could not have been certain of the requirements of the sub-contracting regime that could be included in that contract.

All the work is done and then the contract is finalised—you know, a mates’ arrangement, Liberal Party all-stars: the values of the Liberal Party on display. The report goes on to state:

Where decisions were made by the Ministerial Committee on Government Communications to engage consultants, the successful consultants were advised immediately by the committee or, alternatively, by the Government Communications Unit shortly after. In reality this practice resulted in the creation of contractual arrangements between the department and the successful tenderer.

The report goes on to complain about ‘no documented assessment of proposals or short lists of tenderers’. It goes on to complain that:

A selection process was completed and a letter of engagement issued by the department within 10 hours of the portfolio’s minister’s office requesting the department—

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