Public data re-use policy, but not for road construction in Australia

Abstract

Australian states are mandated to provide researchers access to public sector information (PSI) through three legislative mechanisms: Public Sector Information, Public Records and Freedom of Information. In theory open government is possible because digital technologies allow all PSI to be accessible. Thus, construction management researchers should be able to access public construction documents via government Internet sites.

However, this pilot study of 30 road projects indicates a gap between theory and practice. An archival method was used to search the online procurement documents of three states; New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland. The searches aimed to find the five commonly used road construction procurement documents that could be used by construction management researchers for comparative analysis.

However, documentation for road projects could not always be found. Analysis of the search process and the type of procurement documents accessed indicates significant open PSI differences in these three states. Discussion of the application of the three types of public sector information access legislation is one way of making sense of the variability of access to EOI, EIA, RFP, RFT, and Contract procurements documents via an open PSI in a system within a multiplicity of states and departments.