WA governments of both parties have used procurement and hiring rules to pursue goals other than price and open competition. This page sets out those rules, their targets and the published results. Readers can weigh them for themselves.
Aboriginal Procurement Policy
Fact: Since 2018, the policy has set targets for the share of contracts worth $50,000 or more that state agencies award to registered Aboriginal businesses. Since 1 December 2023 this also includes Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations. The target is a share of the number of contracts, not their value.
| Year | Target (share of contracts) | Result across government |
|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | 1% | 4.77% |
| 2019-20 | 2% | 5.55% |
| 2020-21 | 3% | 6.45% |
| 2021-22 | 3% | 5.60% |
| 2022-23 | 3.5% | 6.86% |
| 2023-24 | 4% | 6.54% |
| 2024-25 | 4% | 6.82% |
| 2025-26 | 4.5% | not yet reported |
| From 2026-27 | 5% | not yet reported |
- In 2024-25, agencies awarded 383 contracts worth $442 million to Aboriginal suppliers.
- Large contracts carry extra rules. Contracts of $5 million or more in construction, community services, education or public administration, or delivered mainly to Aboriginal people, must meet an Aboriginal participation requirement. That can be subcontracting (4% of contract value in 2024-25, rising to 5% from 2026-27) or employment. The employment target is 2% of workers on the contract in Perth, the South West, Great Southern, Peel and Wheatbelt and for state-wide contracts, 5% in the Gascoyne, Mid West and Goldfields-Esperance, and 10% in the Pilbara and Kimberley.
- The Auditor General (2024) found that the overall target had been met every year, but mostly because of a few large agencies such as Main Roads. Only 30 of 130 procuring agencies met their own target in 2023-24.
Sources:
- Aboriginal Procurement Policy (General Procurement Direction 2025/03)
- Aboriginal Procurement Policy Performance Report 2024-25
- Office of the Auditor General, Implementation of the Aboriginal Procurement Policy
Buy Local Policy: regional price preferences
Fact: Under the WA Buy Local Policy 2022, a regional business's bid can be assessed as if its price were lower. The business still gets paid its actual price.
- Goods and services: the bid price is reduced by 10% for evaluation, up to $250,000. A business can claim either the regional business preference or the regional content preference, not both.
- Works: 5% for being a regional business and 5% for regional content, up to $500,000 in total.
- An agency head can raise the cap to $1 million for some tenders.
- The policy FAQs give this example: a $1.5 million bid from an eligible regional supplier is assessed as if it were $1.35 million.
Source: WA Buy Local Policy 2022 and Buy Local Policy 2022 FAQs
Public sector diversity targets
Fact: The Workforce Diversification and Inclusion Strategy 2020-2025 set "aspirational" targets for who works in the public sector. The Public Sector Commission reported these results for March 2025:
| Group | Target | March 2025 (public sector) |
|---|---|---|
| Women in the Senior Executive Service | 50.0% | 51.2% |
| Youth (24 and under) | 5.8% | met (5.8%) |
| Culturally and linguistically diverse people | 15.5% | 18.5% |
| Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people | 3.7% | about 2.8% |
| People with disability | 5.0% | 1.5% to 1.7% since 2021 |
| People of diverse sexualities and genders | no target | not applicable |
The figures depend on staff choosing to share this information, so they may undercount some groups.
Sources:
- Public Sector Commission, Workforce Diversification and Inclusion Strategy 2020-2025
- Public Sector Commission, State of the WA Government Sector Workforce 2024-25, pp.30-35
Hiring rules that allow preference
Fact: The Equal Opportunity Act 1984 generally bans discrimination, but it has exceptions that agencies use in hiring:
- Section 31 (measures to achieve equality, sex): for example, an agency may advertise only for women where women are under-represented.
- Section 50(d) (genuine occupational qualification, race): a role can be reserved where cultural identity is an essential job requirement.
- Section 51 (measures to achieve equality, race): Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander candidates can be given priority.
- Section 66R (measures to achieve equality, disability): a role can be advertised only to people with disability.
Commissioner's Instruction 39, issued in September 2022, let agencies appoint people without advertising in a range of cases. One of those cases was helping to meet the diversity targets. Merit still had to be assessed for each person. The 2024-25 workforce report said CI 39 would stay in place until new recruitment rules were in place. The Commission's 2026 recruitment overview now refers to Commissioner's Instructions 48 and 49, which still allow special measures under equal opportunity law and require an individual assessment of merit.
Sources:
- PSC, Recruiting for and Developing Diverse Talent
- PSC, Focused recruitment strategies for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
- Recruiting, Selecting and Appointing Public Sector Staff: Overview (2026)
What the record does not show
There is no published total of how many appointments were made under these exceptions. There is also no estimate of what the price preferences cost the taxpayer, or of how many contracts went to a higher-priced bid because of a preference.