Procurement reform remains a “huge opportunity” for the federal government to better harness the power of its $70 billion annual spending on goods and services to drive specific industry and economic outcomes, according to independent ACT senator David Pocock.
The government should be looking at ways to bake a ‘retained economic benefit’ into its procurement guidelines and to use those tens of billions of procurement dollars to help in building sovereign Australian capabilities, he said.
Senator Pocock’s comments come on the back of an InnovationAus survey of local tech businesses which found that the Albanese government’s signature Future Made in Australia Office (FMiAO) and Buy Australian Plan had so far made no material difference to the experience of SMEs selling to government.
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