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The NSW government is set to hand over “vast troves” of data to the ACCC, which will be used by AI to assist in tracking down procurement misconduct.
State Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said this week that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and the NSW government would be partnering for the deployment of “world-leading AI technology” to help identify and “flush out cartel behaviour” within the government’s procurement, as originally reported by News.com.
“Each year, the NSW government spends $42 billion buying goods and services,” he said on Monday (29 September).
“We want to make sure that taxpayers are getting full value for their money by ensuring that government procurement isn’t an opportunity for criminal cartel behaviour.
“We want to be able to reward law-abiding businesses by punishing those businesses that choose to break the law.”
The partnership between the NSW state government and the ACCC was formed during the national economic roundtable earlier this year, which was headed by federal government Treasurer Jim Chalmers.
The deal will see the state government hand over “vast troves of procurement data to the ACCC”, according to Mookhey.
ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said the partnership and resultant data would allow the commission to target cases of bid rigging and other misconduct in government procurement, by highlighting patterns in the tender process.
“The agency has been working on algorithms in a combination of our expertise software techniques for some time in order to pick up what these patterns are,” said Cass-Gottlieb.
“But, we’ve been waiting to get access to these data troves, which will allow us to apply them and then to build that expected expertise and that recognition.”
Once identified, an investigator will take on the findings as potential prosecution is sought.
Cass-Gottlieb added that there had been discussions to form similar partnerships between the ACCC and the Commonwealth government. Additionally, the South Australian government formed a similar partnership with the ACCC earlier this year.
NSW Finance Minister Courtney Houssos said the partnership would present economic benefits outside of identifying cases of misconduct and that the new program was not an indicator that any cases of procurement misconduct were occurring.
“There is a global study from the OECD that has shown a significant reduction in procurement costs as a result of these (programs),” she said.
“This will improve the integrity of our procurement system and allow local, fantastic businesses better access to the $42 billion that the NSW government spends each year”.
The NSW government has been taking strides in embracing and regulating AI over the last month, having just launched NSW EduChat, a “state-of-the-art generative AI app” to assist public school children across the state.
The state also passed legislation outlawing the creation and distribution of explicit AI-generated deepfakes.
The state government also announced a new state Office for AI that will review AI use across the public sector, as well as having adopted AI to speed up the development of housing and data centres.
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