Stephen Withers
Monday, 15 December 2008 10:38
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
But as
Stuart Corner reported earlier today, Telstra and its Opposition supporters think otherwise. "Telstra considers it has fully complied with the RFP requirements (which did not require a SME plan to be lodged as part of the RFP proposal itself) and that the Commonwealth has used a peripheral issue to exclude Telstra," said Telstra officials.
Get real, people! Even if the RFP was read in such a way that the SME plan didn't have to be submitted alongside the proposal, as soon the closing date had passed, the panel or those in the Department given the job of assisting it would be entitled to conclude that Telstra's submission was incomplete.
But if you read sufficiently deeply into the RFP, you'll find section 6 of Schedule 2, which instructs proposers to "Attach as Annexure Q a plan for providing opportunities to Australian and New Zealand SMEs."
Note the wording: "Attach". Not "send later if you can't be bothered to do it just now," but "Attach".
So what was Conroy's pronouncement?
"There was nothing to stop Telstra from submitting a complete proposal and competing vigorously with other proponents in this process," said Conroy.
"Instead, the Telstra Board failed to comply with the mandatory requirements of the RFP."
Conroy went on to criticise Telstra for trying to propose its own process instead of following the rules.
What else did the Minister say? See
page 3.
