Peter Gutwein: Liberal Government backs local businesses to create jobs

The Liberal Government is backing Tasmanian businesses.

Our long term Plan for Tasmania’s future is aimed at providing the right environment for local businesses like the one we are at today, Bullock Consulting, to grow and employ more people.

We have already followed through on our commitment to make it easier for more local businesses to benefit from government contracts.

High value procurement and private sector projects that receive government support must now include a Tasmanian Industry Participation Plan in order to ensure local industry participation is maximised.

A Local Benefits Test is now in place for government tenders meaning the benefits to the wider community such as job creation, and social benefits must be taken into account when decisions are made on awarding contracts.

We have also moved quickly to introduce mandatory disaggregation of large and/or state-wide contracts to open the market to more small businesses that would otherwise not get a look in.

This is in addition to mandatory procurement planning to ensure Government Departments and businesses focus on maximising opportunities for local businesses, before they even go to the market.

These measures have been implemented through a new Treasurer’s Instruction, and demonstrate the Liberal Government delivering on our election commitments to support local business and create jobs.

These measures also support our Jobs target to reduce Tasmania’s unemployment rate to at least the national average in our first term of government.
Peter Gutwein, Treasurer