TfNSW Panel 4

[tonyp]

I hope this isn't an ominous development in NSW:

https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system ... y-2022.pdf

Panel 3 is expiring next week and hitherto all Panel versions have been published on the TfNSW web site. Panel 4 is supposed to be now in effect, but they haven't published it. Instead they have recently posted this template agreement that suggests that only operators and manufacturers can have access to the Panel, that it would be detrimental to TfNSW and manufacturers to disclose the details of the Panel and that the penalty for doing so would be loss of an operator's service contract. That's very severe.

The way government in general is heading nowadays, such attempts at cover-up immediately raise a suspicion that there's something to hide. If so, in the absence of any explanation, this invites being leaked because people don't like government in a democracy acting in such a clandestine manner. There are not even any conceivable "commercial-in-confidence" factors that could be involved in publishing what is basically a set of guidelines.

Will wait to see what happens next week.

[Bus 400]

Other governments have been the same.
Recently, a tender for a new fire station in Canberra required one of those NDA's. Whilst the floor plans were made available to the public showing everything in detail through the planning department.

Sent from my SM-S911B using Tapatalk

[Linto63]

If panel 3 is still current, no surprise that panel 4 isn't up yet. That sought of Non Disclosure Agreement is standard for being granted access to any government portal. Not as if what is on the panel will be able to be kept secret for long, anything new that pops up in TfNSW funded fleets it can be taken as read is on the list.

TfNSW''s press release from 1 March 2024 indicates that it is a work in progress, maybe they are seeking to finalise before publishing.

[tonyp]

Yes, I'm aware that Panel 3 expires on 19 March, that's why I said I'll wait till next week. It just perplexes me to understand why they want a confidentiality deed when there's nothing in a Bus Panel that they have to be secretive about. I'm sure they're not about to open up the market to a lot of North Korean and Russian models, or something like that. We'll see.

[Linto63]

The NDA is probably not to cover what buses are on the panel given that information has historically been freely available, but probably for other information in the portal that TfNSW does not what operators to share, e.g. how much buses they order cost. This isn't anything new, the document dating back to July 2022.