In modern times, Australian governments and local authorities no longer maintain their own public works departments, as once was the case. Instead of maintaining fleets of construction equipment and extensive workforces at great taxpayer expense, Australian governments and local authorities nowadays look to the private sector to construct and maintain public infrastructure. It is commonplace for these to request tenders from, and then contract with, construction contractors in the private sector. For construction contractors, government contracting has the potential to give rise to legal risks that would not eventuate from private sector contracting. One such legal risk associated with government contracting concerns the extent to which commercially-valuable information provided to government during the infrastructure tendering process may be publicly disclosed.
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