Appendices

Defence is committed to ensuring that its procurement processes are visible and accessible, and that there is an opportunity for all suppliers to do business with Defence. Defence's commitment to accountability requires that the Parliament and the public have the right to know the extent and type of goods and services needed to support Government programs, including the cost and who supplied it. This visibility is provided through AusTender.

Defence must report in AusTender the details of any contract or standing offer with a value of $10,000 or more. In the context of gazettal requirements, 'contract' means any agreement for the procurement of goods and services under which Defence is obliged to make payment of public money to a supplier and includes a purchase order, oral or written contract or lease or corporate credit card transaction. 'Contract' also covers agency agreements, that is, agreements for the procurement of goods and services under which an agency is obliged, or may become obliged, to make a payment of public money to another agency.

The Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines and Best Practice Guidance provide that, if the Secretary of a department or officers delegated by the Secretary consider gazettal of procurement details to be exempt under the Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Secretary or the relevant delegate may direct in writing that these details are not to be published in AusTender.

In 2005–06, Defence had a total of 86 contracts or standing offers, with a total value of $234.4m exempted from publication because publication could cause damage to the national security, defence or international relations of the Commonwealth, in accordance with Section 33(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 1982. A breakdown by Group of the number of exemptions and total amounts is shown below.

Defence introduced a card management system in 2003 to streamline the method of processing transactions for purchases made using Defence credit cards. For accountability and security purposes, the credit cards are issued to appropriately trained and authorised personnel, and therefore payments made on these cards can not be attributed to specific Groups or Services. During 2005–06, 198 card management system transactions were exempted with a total value of $4.8m. These transactions are not captured in the Table 6.32.

Table 6.32 Number of Contract/Standing Offer Exemptions from Publication by Group⁽¹⁾

Group	2004–05		2005–06
	Number of exemptions	$'000	Number of exemptions	$'000
Navy	1	43	–	–
Army	–	–	4	145
Air Force	2	133	–	–
Chief Information Officer Group	7	1,280	–	–
Corporate Services and Infrastructure	–	–	–	–
Intelligence and Security Group	42	16,851	64	228,257
Strategy	1	1,401	10	1,657
Vice Chief of the Defence Force/Chief of Joint Operations	3	9,171	8	4,372
Total	56	28,879	86	234,431

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