Department of Education and Training
Mr HODGETT (Croydon) (14:23): My question is to the Minister for Education. What is the cumulative value of contracts in excess of $100 000 that have been awarded without a public tender process by the department of education since the state of emergency was declared in March 2020?
Mr MERLINO (Monbulk—Minister for Education, Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers) (14:23): I thank the honourable member for Croydon for his question. I will endeavour to respond in detail to that detailed question in terms of the support that we provided Victorian schools through the course of the pandemic. We needed to move—as honourable members would know, we needed to move fast and quickly to support schools, to support students and to support the profession during this pandemic, and that is exactly what we have done. Now that we are in a period with high vaccination rates, getting to 80 per cent and then to 90 per cent, and having an environment where we can have schools closed for a minimal period of time, with investment in things such as air purifiers—the only jurisdiction in the country that is rolling out this important investment—we have had to make decisions quickly, but to the detail of the honourable member’s question, I will be happy to come back to him with a more detailed answer.
Mr HODGETT (Croydon) (14:24): Given that a number of contracts in the education department have been awarded—without a public tender process—that have exceeded $1 million in value, how many of these contracts have been authorised by the minister?
Mr MERLINO (Monbulk—Minister for Education, Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers) (14:25): I thank the honourable member for his supplementary question. What I can advise is that departments, including my Department of Education and Training, activated their critical incident procurement policies, as you would expect in a one-in-100-year pandemic. There is no doubt that the pandemic was and continues to be a critical incident. So you need to make time-critical decisions to support schools and to support communities, and we did so in an appropriate way. All departments, including mine, will continue to deliver good value and outcomes for the community, and I make no apologies for that. I make no apologies for making decisions—time-critical, emergency decisions—to support students, to protect students—
Mr Hodgett: On a point of order, Speaker, whilst I appreciate the minister’s answer, he is not being relevant to the question, which asked how many of these contracts were authorised by the minister that exceeded $1 million in value.
The SPEAKER: Order! The minister is being relevant to the question that has been asked.
Mr MERLINO: Thanks, Speaker. As I was saying, the department and I as Minister for Education will continue to make decisions in the best interests and safety of students, something the member is not responsible for. (Time expired)