A growing number of frustrated and fed-up Douglas Shire business owners and tradesmen believe the ‘Do it in Douglas’ slogan is nothing more than a meaningless, hollow smokescreen as Council continues to issue increased work to Cairns’ based businesses.

A number of Douglas Shire business owners and tradesmen agreed to speak to Newsport under the condition of anonymity – in which they provided their views about the process to: secure Douglas Shire based tender work 2) whether Douglas Shire Council is transparent, clear and proper when advertising tender work 3) the reasons given and provided by Douglas Shire Council when Douglas Shire businesses miss out on work to Cairns based tenders – was both stark and equally concerning.

“It’s farcical” one Douglas Shire business owner told Newsport, “until heads roll at the top, nothing will ever change at Douglas Shire Council”.

“A lot of Douglas Shire business owners and tradesmen won’t even bother with trying to secure Douglas Shire Council tender work now, because “decent jobs go elsewhere”, “we’re ignored” or “we don’t even get a look at it”.

“They only seem to want you at the last minute when they’re desperate and completely out of options.”

The same operator said they could have done current works on the Daintree Ferry over the course of a week at a cost of $100,000 – nowhere near the approximate $400,000 price tag and six-week period in which current works will take to complete.

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Question and Answer - Unnamed Douglas based business

Newsport: N

Business: B

N: In more recent times Newsport has received increasing correspondence through email, phone calls and meetings that Douglas Shire tradespeople and businesses are providing quotes and prices to Douglas Shire Council for local jobs, near or close to par of those of Cairns based businesses and tradesmen - but are still being overlooked or simply missing out on Douglas based work ... Broadly speaking do you think this is a growing problem/ accurate sentiment? 

B: We are usually provided a purchase order to do very specific (usually small jobs) but the larger jobs that go to tender for example the footpath to Mossman Gorge, drainage works in Warner Street, lighting for Coronation Park, the soccer grounds and DSC Ferry maintenance contracts have all gone to non-local (outside of the Douglas Shire) companies. 

Approximately five to six years ago there was a meeting for local contractors at the Mossman Council depot after the Council had been provided a lot of flood recovery money. 

During the course of the meeting a dissection was provided on money spent locally and the presenter used the postcodes 4873, 4877 and 4870 (the Cairns postcode) as local. 

In my mind (the postcode) 4870 (Cairns) is not local, but regional.  I regret not speaking up at the time and asking that question during the meeting but as the years have gone along I have become more vocal. 

I don’t know if it is standard for the Council to include postcode 4870 as local in their decision-making process.

N: Do you genuinely believe Douglas Shire Council supports Douglas based tradesmen or is it simply a case of whoever is the cheapest and can deliver on the scope of work including Cairns workers, gets the job? 

B: I believe they go solely upon pricing but I don’t know if all companies quoting on large jobs are quoting on the same quality materials and doing the job the same way. 

It would be good at the end of the day to see what variations have been added by the contractors that get the jobs based on the cheapest quote to see if they actually ended up the cheapest. 

I have heard from various contractors that they have requested a follow up meeting with project/procurement teams but the meeting is never forthcoming.

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MC Group sentiments

A third local business operator – Mossman based Michael Connolly from MCGroup was happy to go on the record publicly to discuss his sentiments.

“A while ago we put in a tender to build the footpath into the Gorge – we believe our tender was the cheapest by around $60,000 but Council came back to us and said our submission was ‘non-conforming’,” Mr Connolly said.

“Besides Douglas Shire businesses missing out on local tender works, I wanted to mention to the critical importance of Councillors receiving all relevant information in order to be able to make proper and informed decisions around tender decisions at Council meetings.

“As it stands Councillors can only make decisions based on the recommendations put before them, and it’s my feeling the recommendations they often consider don’t have all of the information required for them to make a clear decision in regard to awarding tenders properly and to the right businesses.”

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Questions to Douglas Shire Council

In addition Newsport emailed and sought response from Council to the following three questions:

1 - Is Council confident that it actually does 'Do it in Douglas' in the wake of more and more local businesses and tradesmen suggesting tenders are being awarded to Cairns based businesses??

 2 - How does Council respond to claims that it continues to turn its back on Douglas Shire based businesses and tradesmen?

 3 - Does Council offer a fair tender process that gives Douglas businesses the opportunity to be considered for tenders ahead of Cairns based businesses?

However, despite an extended deadline Council did not provide responses to our questions prior to our publishing deadline.

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3.41PM, 20/10 - Council responses to Newsport questions

1 - Is Council confident that it actually does 'Do it in Douglas' in the wake of more and more local businesses and tradesmen suggesting tenders are being awarded to Cairns based businesses??

Council: Council engages suppliers through a procurement process. Relevant skills, experience, professionalism, vendor location, resources, or willingness to comply with the requirements to undertake Council project are taken into consideration.

2 - How does Council respond to claims that it continues to turn its back on Douglas Shire-based businesses and tradesmen?

Council: Council rejects the assertion that it turns its back on locals. In the past financial year Council spent 26% of its contracted spend with local vendors. Unfortunately, there are occasions when specialist skills are needed but they are not available within the shire.

Councillors are committed to supporting local businesses when appropriate but they also have the legal obligation of getting the best value for rate payer money to ensure rate increases are kept to the minimum.

Elected members welcome any businesses who have concerns about the procurement process to contact them.

3 - Does Council offer a fair tender process that gives Douglas businesses the opportunity to be considered for tenders ahead of Cairns-based businesses?

Council: Council procures most of its services through Work with Douglas Shire (vendorpanel.com).  

In accordance with Council’s procurement policy, there is an evaluation category (weighted at 20 %) for local content.