On 1 January 2026, the newly updated Queensland Procurement Policy came into effect. Who doesn’t love a good read of government policy document?
OK – there aren’t many like me who do. But in all seriousness, procurement policies provide valuable insights that benefit industry when engaging with and selling to government. They tell us what’s important to government stakeholders and what type of relationship government wants with suppliers. Policy documents also provide valuable intelligence that you can use a to gain a competitive edge. Yes, they are free and available to anyone, but in my experience only the far-sighted take the time to read them.
A quick exploration of the recent Queensland Procurement Policy update uncovers four key nuggets industry should be aware of when planning to do business with the Queensland Government.
Nugget #1 – Integrate social outcomes into your value proposition for Government
New strategic pillars
One of the more significant changes from the previous policy arrives early in the document, with the introduction of five ‘strategic pillars’. These set a clear direction on the outcomes Government is seeking to achieve with the policy:
- Value for Queensland – no surprises that ‘value’ is number one, but the phrase ‘Value for Queensland’ instead of the usual ‘Value for Money’ is interesting. The message is clear, keep taxpayer dollars circulating within Queensland through buying local. With the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games now only six years away, the Government is clearly focused on maximising opportunity for Queensland businesses in the preparation and delivery of the games.
- Local opportunities – building on the first pillar, this continues the Government’s commitment to achieving 30% of procurement value from Queensland SMEs.
- Easy to do business – always welcome of course, but the proof will be in the pudding when the proposed streamlined invitation and contract documentation is issued by the end of year.
- Open to new ideas – this feels like a significant shift from the previous policy that only had a cursory sentence on encouraging innovation. The policy also recognises that realising the benefits of innovation often requires collaborative early market engagement.
- Practical economic, environmental and social procurement – While each of the four pillars above merit a page in the document, this pillar warrants two. This is a clear ‘tell’. Social procurement matters to the Queensland Government and will continue to increase in importance. Accordingly, industry can’t afford to pay lip service to it. Realisation of this pillar will primarily be through the Purposeful Procurement evaluation criteria for ‘significant’ procurements.
Nugget #2– Build trust with buyers through early collaboration
Simpler procurement principles
In addition to introducing the strategic pillars, the new Queensland Procurement Policy has consolidated the previous six procurement principles into four. It’s easy to think of these as simply being the ‘rules of the game’, but there are two things industry should note:
- Selling on value – If you are struggling about how to start selling on value not price, then the wording in this principle provides a great starting point.
- Collaboration – the previous policy primarily focused on collaboration within government. The new policy brings industry into the mix, which can only be welcomed. For too long, the perception from industry has been that governments generally consider collaboration to be ‘do what I say’.
Nugget #3 – You don’t have to compete to win
Sole-source contracting
This is must-know stuff for industry when engaging with government. Contracts can be awarded without a competitive process, and the Queensland Procurement Policy 2026 provides clear guidelines for this.
For diverse suppliers (SMEs, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander owned enterprises, and social enterprises) the thresholds are $0.5M for goods and services, and $8.5M for construction.
And although the general exemption threshold is a more modest $50,000, it could still be an important enabler for innovation and proof of concept style procurement.
Nugget #4 – Engage respectively to gain full benefit from client feedback
A supplier’s right to meaningful feedback
This is one of the most welcome elements of the new policy. For too long procurement feedback has been cursory and rarely enables industry to identify meaningful action to increase competitiveness.
The Queensland Procurement Policy’s 2026 update is clear:
‘The level of feedback provided should be aligned to the level of information requested from a supplier.’
This doesn’t mean an open book to the details of your competitor’s offer. But it does set out industry’s right for a meaningful conversation that enables them to be more competitive in the future.
Intentions only crystallise through implementation
There’s much to like about the direction of this new policy. Making the time to read it uncovers a lot of gold for those wishing to do business with the Queensland Government.
But as with any policy, the true value of the QPP 2026 is only realised through implementation. So I’ll be watching these developments with interest.Â
My one wish – a break for all over the holiday period
Finally, to anyone in the in the Queensland Government reading this, how about adding a commitment to not having RFTs open or close around the Christmas holiday period? This would tuck away nicely under the Easy to Do Business pillar, and after all, you wouldn’t want to win one of my Lump of Coal Awards, would you?
