NSW Government IT scandal is a betrayal of Aussies

NEW evidence confirms that the NSW government supports the erosion of Australian jobs in favour of cheaper offshore options. And it’s an utter disgrace, writes Miranda Devine.

THE NSW Government has gone to great lengths to deny its secret plan to offshore IT jobs to India.

For the past two weeks it has denied my story that the Roads and Maritime Services was requiring companies tendering for a $100 million IT contract to give at least one third of the jobs to cut price workers overseas.

My story was 100 per cent correct, and I have been provided with even more leaked documents which are evidence of a deliberate and concerted policy by the NSW government to send those Australian IT jobs to India to save money.

There is the 59-page Request for Proposal dated February 7, 2018 which explicitly stipulates that 20 per cent of jobs come from “offshore” in the first year, 30 per cent in the second year and an “ongoing approach to increase offshore efforts” in subsequent years of the seven-year contract.

There is the 40-page briefing package given to 25 people representing seven companies at a meeting at RMS offices in Milsons Point on February 13, convened by former Chief Information Officer Rob Putter. This stipulates the “expectation of Contractor for this Service: Use of offshore Resourcing (initially 20 per cent of total contract effort being offshore) with gradual increase over the contract term is expected to support the Contractor to provide services at the lowest cost.”

Elsewhere it stipulates in addition a Year 2 “target” of 30 per cent offshore jobs and a “measured ongoing ­app­roach to increase offshore efforts over the contract term.”

NSW Roads Minister Melinda Pavey denied The Daily Telegraph’s story, but further documents confirm it to be true. (Pic: AAP/Joel Carrett)

Then there is a 72-page form the RMS gave to companies to fill out if they wanted to tender for the contract. The requirement to offshore jobs appears five times.

For instance: section 3.1.3 reads: “Please specify which onshore and offshore delivery centres you intend on leveraging to perform the Services.”

The offshoring requirements in the tender documents guaranteed that Indian companies Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro ended up on the short list.

Wollongong company itree has been invited to tender only for a “selected segment of the bid”.

The documents clearly show the RMS and Roads Minister Melinda Pavey have not been straight with the people of NSW.

Pavey denied our story two weeks ago and issued a press release the next day saying it was wrong: “there is no requirement for any offshoring as part of the tender” she said.

Wrong. As the documents show.

And yesterday in Parliament, under questioning from the Opposition, Pavey refused to table the RFP document number WS1165586964.

Instead, she had a shot at The Daily Telegraph, played semantic games, and used the race card against Opposition Leader Luke Foley.

But she couldn’t deny the undeniable. “We are living in an international economy especially when it comes to IT”, she said, before claiming that the RMS’ requirement for offshoring was just a quest for information.

“What we are doing is ensuring we get best value for the taxpayer by understanding what part of that tender may have an offshore component,” Pavey said.

“This is an important decision that RMS will make but we need to know what’s involved in a tender before we make any announcement or any decisions.”

Not so. The documents make clear that offshoring is required and how much is required. There is no limit to the amount of offshoring, and there is a requirement for 20 per cent in the first year, escalating every year, with the stated objective being the lowest possible cost.

The companies at the briefing on February 13, Fujitsu, Datacom, Accenture, itree, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, and Tech Mahindra, were in no doubt about what the RMS expected.

“The RMS personnel stated that it was mandated by the Minister that to achieve the lowest price they need to seek offshore resources” said one attendee.

“This clearly makes a joke of the Minister’s denial that this tender mandated offshoring.”

The NSW Government’s offshoring of jobs is a betrayal to Australians. (Pic: AAP/David Moir)

The original RFP document, sighted by a small group at RMS, made its intent even clearer with the requirement for a “minimum 20% offshore utilisation in year 1”.

The word “minimum” subsequently was removed, and Pavey yesterday tried to pretend that the removal excused her dissembling.

“The most important thing to remember “, she said, “ is that in the official tender document that went out the word mandatory and the word minimum were not used.”

No. When the offshore “expectation” begins at 20 per cent and increases every year, the minimum requirement is clear whether the word is used or not.

All up, it’s been a tawdry attempt at covering up what is a betrayal of Australian workers by a Coalition government.

At least 300 NSW public sector jobs are expected to be sent overseas in the first three years of the contract.

Indian programmers are cheaper than Australian ones. But so are Indian politicians. A member of parliament in India receives around $50,000 a year, which is about three times cheaper than NSW MPs.

So let’s outsource our politicians instead.