Senate debates

Wednesday, 21 March 2007

Questions without Notice

Smartcard

2:01 pm

Photo of Chris EllisonChris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

As previously announced, evaluation of the two tender processes is continuing. That was announced some time ago. What I have said recently is that, in response to the Senate committee report, instead of having the bill brought before parliament in two tranches I have agreed to deal with it as one package. That does not change anything as far as the evaluation of the tenders goes. That evaluation is ongoing. Of course, the signing of any tender would take place after the passing of any legislation.

This is not an unusual practice. We have seen examples previously, such as with the Australian business number. When that was introduced, systems were largely finalised prior to the bill being passed. The systems design work on the maternity payment and maternity immunisation allowance also commenced before the legislation was passed in that case. Another precedent is the working credit initiative under the Australians Working Together initiative, which started in early 2001. Systems design work on that commenced prior to legislation being passed.

So there are certainly precedents for this being done. There is nothing untoward in it. In fact, I think it was Senator Lundy who acknowledged during the public hearing on the access card legislation that the separation of the tender process into components was sound practice. That is what we have done: we have separated that tender process into components. There is no reason why that evaluation of tenders cannot continue. The selection of preferred systems integrator and card issuance and management tenderers will occur later this year.

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