Amongst others, I recently argued that the Federal Government should pay its bills within 7 days rather than the 30 that they were speeded up to with much fanfare as part of our efforts in fighting the recession. I don’t think there’s been any progress on that at the Federal level, but I may be wrong. In the meantime I gave a presentation to senior officials in the Queensland Government on innovation in government. An invoice was sent for my services last Wednesday. The money is now in our account. I don’t know how systematic this is, but I’m impressed. Perhaps there’s a good reason, but I fail to see why this can’t be the rule with governments everywhere, especially when we’re looking round for sensible ways to increase the velocity of money in circulation.
Gee you guys are putting it mildly. When one party is the lowest-cost borrower in the country with basically unlimited and cheap access to funds whenever it wants, it would seem blindingly obvious common sense at the best of times.
In present times when the other side in a cashflow-starved business world trying just to survive, talk about leaving $50 bills on the footpath!
JC, in fairness, if I come home, logon and transfer money out of my Australian bank account, the next morning (US time, ie around 10pm Aust time) it is there in my US account. I reckon that is pretty swish.
The Commonwealth govt is much faster at paying bills than the Qld govt.
Almost without exception Commonwealth depts pay within 30 days of being invoiced.
Qld depts are routinely up to Four months after invoicing before they pay. Payment by the Qld govt is often only after chasing them up in a heavy handed manner.
The Qld Department of Justice & Attorney General are the only government cheques that have bounced on me so far this century.
The Qld govt slow payment problem has largely resolved itself. A week or so after the state election funding in a considerable number of areas was revoked.
Not saying correlation is causation or anything of the like. Just that since the early 1970’s a government cheque (state or federal) has not bounced on me if there is a Liberal/National govt, and slow payment has been a feature of only ALP govts.
My most memorable effort was doing a contract/project for a certain Victorian department.
Only got the contract finally signed and then payed a full month after the six month project was finished, completed, accepted. Complaints about payment schedule weren’t taken very seriously by public servants who got payed on the dot every fortnight irrespective of whether they produced anything or not or turned up for work or not and who were wont to complain if their pay amount was in error by 60 cents or so.
It did prompt a more bolshie approach on our behalf. No start till 50% up front.