The Sovereign Australian Prime Alliance (SAPA) congratulates the Albanese Government on its announcement today of much needed reforms to the Commonwealth Procurement Rules to define an Australian business, in the context of the Commonwealth procurement framework as:
- “a business, including any parent business, that:
- has 50% or more Australian ownership or is principally traded on an Australian equities market; and
- is an Australian resident for tax purposes; and
- is a business that has its principal place of business in Australia.”
SAPA has always maintained that definitions are an essential building block when designing and implementing industry policies. When policies are developed without accurate definitions to guide them, policy failure is almost certain.
Now, armed with a commonsense definition of an Australian business, Government will be able to make accurate assessments of policies affecting Australia’s industrial base – both local and international – and direct future policies with confidence.
SAPA also welcomes the additional reform to Commonwealth Procurement Rules, introducing the Broader Economic Benefits in Procurement metric when making value judgements in government tendering. This reform will require future government procurement to consider a broader range of weightings, priority outcomes, and contracting considerations when assessing submissions for government contracts.
Along with multiple industry peak bodies, SAPA participated in the Ministerial Working Group (Working Group) to help shape this important bipartisan reform. We look forward to working with Commonwealth government departments as this new reform gets embedded in future procurement and tendering processes, and we encourage state/ territory governments to adopt this commonsense solution which has been led at the Federal level.
SAPA acknowledges the work of everyone involved in the Working Group and pays particular mention to representatives of the Department of Finance, and the Department of Industry, Science & Resources, as well as the offices of Minister for Finance, Sen. the Hon. Katy Gallagher and Minister for Industry, Science & Resources the Hon Ed Husic MP for their commitment to reaching this positive outcome.
We would also like to thank Senator for ACT David Pocock and his office for their advocacy for this important reform.
