QLD printers up in arms over government market attack

The peak industry body has accused the Government of working behind a smokescreen with its plans to spend an off-budget $4.5 million to upgrade the government printer, Goprint, insisting it is a prelude to full entry into commercial printing that will compete with local private printing companies.

Neal McLary, general manager of Printing Industries Queensland, says the funding includes the purchase of a high capacity state-of the-art six-colour press.

“You don’t need such capacity and capability to print Hansard text and confidential budget papers as claimed by the minister, Robert Schwarten, but you would need it for high capacity commercial printing,” says McLary. “It’s quite apparent that taxpayer funds are being used to establish a manufacturing facility to give the government an entrée into commercial printing.”

Goprint has confirmed it is still in the tender process for the purchase of the six-colour press and expects to finalise the contract within the next four weeks.

McLary says the smoke screen will ultimately be blown away under the guise of capital cost recovery.

“We will then have taxpayer subsidised plant, equipment and employees competing against private sector companies who must fund their own overheads including employment and capital costs and pay taxes. This will mean job losses for the Queensland industry because no business can compete against a competitor who doesn’t have overheads or who has unlimited taxpayer money to call on to prop it up,” he said.

McLary has criticised the Queensland Government for having a poor record of financial management in regards to Goprint, with the organisation incurring significant losses to Queensland taxpayers for most of the last 10 years, including $6.8 million over a five-year period.

“It’s obvious the bureaucracy doesn’t manage commercial services well and yet, contrary to the decisions of most western governments, which leave these services to the private sector, the Queensland Government believes it can make Goprint work – even at a cost to private sector jobs and businesses. The Minister’s defence that the expenditure is needed to print Hansard and confidential budget papers is nonsense. You don’t need a $2 million six-colour printing press to produce photocopied documents.”

McLary insists that to effectively and efficiently meet the needs of Hansard and budget paper printing, a $300,000 digital printer that can sort, collate and bind could do the job admirably, quickly and cost effectively.

Printing Industries has called on the government to reassess its printing capability needs and to focus on providing its stated capability objective – to reproduce its confidential budget and Hansard documents – projects for which a six-colour commercial press is just not necessary.

“Our industry is facing increased pressure from overseas competition, particularly from China, and we need the support of our government, not competition from it, to keep our industry intact, maintain the jobs of our employees and help make us more competitive not less competitive,” says McLary.