The procurement rules changed and your capability statement did not

The procurement rules changed and your capability statement did not

Sep 15, 2026

Sep 15, 2026

On 17 November 2025 the Commonwealth Procurement Rules were updated, and a set of doors opened for Australian businesses that most of them have not walked through yet. Three changes matter if you sell to government, or if you supply the businesses that do.

On 17 November 2025 the Commonwealth Procurement Rules were updated, and a set of doors opened for Australian businesses that most of them have not walked through yet. Three changes matter if you sell to government, or if you supply the businesses that do.

man in black long sleeve shirt sitting on chair beside woman in black and white stripe
man in black long sleeve shirt sitting on chair beside woman in black and white stripe

The threshold moved from $80,000 to $125,000. For non-corporate Commonwealth entities buying anything other than construction, the point at which a full open tender process kicks in is now considerably higher.

Below that threshold, buyers must invite Australian businesses. For non-panel procurement under the relevant threshold, non-corporate Commonwealth entities are now required to invite only Australian businesses to tender.

On some panels, only smaller businesses may be invited. For Management Advisory Services, People and Digital Transformation Agency panel procurements under $125,000, buying teams must approach small and medium businesses, after the Indigenous Procurement Policy requirements have been applied. The rules use the term "SMEs", and they have also tightened who qualifies: eligibility is now assessed on how a business actually operates rather than on legal structure alone, which closes off the arrangements that let large firms wear a small badge.

Put together, a meaningful band of federal spending between roughly $10,000 and $125,000 has been pointed at Australian businesses, and a slice of it at smaller ones specifically.

The catch nobody mentions

Here is the part that changes what you need to do about it.

Below the threshold, most of this work moves by invitation rather than by open advertisement. A procurement officer with a budget and a deadline builds a short list of businesses to approach, and that list comes from the ones they can find, assess and justify quickly.

Which means the competitive moment happens before there is a tender. It happens while somebody is searching, reading your website, opening your capability statement and deciding whether you look like a safe recommendation to put in front of their delegate.

You are being assessed on a document and a website, by a person you will never speak to, against criteria you will never see. That is a real contest with a real outcome, and plenty of good businesses are turning up to it with a capability statement last touched in 2022.

Value for money now includes how you behave

The other change worth reading properly is the one about ethical conduct.

Procurement decisions must now weigh a supplier's performance on labour practices, workplace health and safety, environmental responsibility and supply chain integrity as part of the value for money assessment. That puts it inside the decision itself rather than in a compliance annexure at the back of the pack.

For a lot of Australian businesses this is quietly good news, because it is the part they are already excellent at and have never bothered putting on paper. The builder with a spotless safety record, the manufacturer who can trace every component back to its source, the logistics business that pays properly and trains its people. All of it counts now, and all of it stays invisible unless it is written down somewhere a stranger can read it.

Six things worth doing before the next opportunity comes up

1. Rebuild the capability statement as an assessment document.

Most capability statements are brochures. This one has a job: let somebody who has never met you justify choosing you. That means ABN and Australian operating footprint stated plainly, the services scoped the way a buyer describes them rather than the way you describe them, three relevant projects with outcomes, insurances and certifications current, and named contacts.

2. Put the ethical conduct material in the document, not in a folder.

Safety record and WHS system. Environmental practices and any certification. Labour practices, including how you engage subcontractors. Supply chain and where your inputs come from. A short, specific paragraph on each beats a policy nobody opens.

3. Make sure a stranger can find you and assess you in five minutes.

Register on AusTender and keep the profile current, because that is where the search starts. Then check what happens when somebody searches your service and your city. If your website does not say clearly what you do, who you do it for and where you operate, you are not on the list being drawn up.

4. Fix the gap between what you are certified for and what you say you do.

Procurement officers cross-check. An expired certification on a website, a licence number that does not match the register, a team page listing people who left, each one is a reason to move to the next business on the list rather than ring you and ask.

5. Write three case studies that survive being forwarded.

Problem, what you did, what it delivered, who it was for. One page each. These are the documents that get pasted into an internal recommendation, which is where the decision actually gets made.

6. Use the same material on the private side.

Prequalification for a tier one builder, a supplier assessment from a mining company, a vendor onboarding pack from a bank. They ask for very nearly the same evidence. Build it once for the federal rules and you have answered most of the private sector's questions as well.

The honest version

Threshold changes do not win anybody work. What they do is change who is allowed in the room, and this one has let a lot more Australian businesses in.

The businesses that will get something out of it are the ones who can be found quickly, assessed confidently and recommended internally without a conversation. That is a brand problem and a documents problem before it is ever a tendering problem.

If you have not looked at your capability statement since before November last year, that is the place to start. Open it, and read it as though you are a procurement officer with six of them on your desk and forty minutes to make a shortlist.

One caveat worth stating. The rules are detailed, they vary between corporate and non-corporate entities, and thresholds differ again for construction. Check the current Commonwealth Procurement Rules and get advice before you rely on any threshold figure for a specific bid.

Sources

The threshold moved from $80,000 to $125,000. For non-corporate Commonwealth entities buying anything other than construction, the point at which a full open tender process kicks in is now considerably higher.

Below that threshold, buyers must invite Australian businesses. For non-panel procurement under the relevant threshold, non-corporate Commonwealth entities are now required to invite only Australian businesses to tender.

On some panels, only smaller businesses may be invited. For Management Advisory Services, People and Digital Transformation Agency panel procurements under $125,000, buying teams must approach small and medium businesses, after the Indigenous Procurement Policy requirements have been applied. The rules use the term "SMEs", and they have also tightened who qualifies: eligibility is now assessed on how a business actually operates rather than on legal structure alone, which closes off the arrangements that let large firms wear a small badge.

Put together, a meaningful band of federal spending between roughly $10,000 and $125,000 has been pointed at Australian businesses, and a slice of it at smaller ones specifically.

The catch nobody mentions

Here is the part that changes what you need to do about it.

Below the threshold, most of this work moves by invitation rather than by open advertisement. A procurement officer with a budget and a deadline builds a short list of businesses to approach, and that list comes from the ones they can find, assess and justify quickly.

Which means the competitive moment happens before there is a tender. It happens while somebody is searching, reading your website, opening your capability statement and deciding whether you look like a safe recommendation to put in front of their delegate.

You are being assessed on a document and a website, by a person you will never speak to, against criteria you will never see. That is a real contest with a real outcome, and plenty of good businesses are turning up to it with a capability statement last touched in 2022.

Value for money now includes how you behave

The other change worth reading properly is the one about ethical conduct.

Procurement decisions must now weigh a supplier's performance on labour practices, workplace health and safety, environmental responsibility and supply chain integrity as part of the value for money assessment. That puts it inside the decision itself rather than in a compliance annexure at the back of the pack.

For a lot of Australian businesses this is quietly good news, because it is the part they are already excellent at and have never bothered putting on paper. The builder with a spotless safety record, the manufacturer who can trace every component back to its source, the logistics business that pays properly and trains its people. All of it counts now, and all of it stays invisible unless it is written down somewhere a stranger can read it.

Six things worth doing before the next opportunity comes up

1. Rebuild the capability statement as an assessment document.

Most capability statements are brochures. This one has a job: let somebody who has never met you justify choosing you. That means ABN and Australian operating footprint stated plainly, the services scoped the way a buyer describes them rather than the way you describe them, three relevant projects with outcomes, insurances and certifications current, and named contacts.

2. Put the ethical conduct material in the document, not in a folder.

Safety record and WHS system. Environmental practices and any certification. Labour practices, including how you engage subcontractors. Supply chain and where your inputs come from. A short, specific paragraph on each beats a policy nobody opens.

3. Make sure a stranger can find you and assess you in five minutes.

Register on AusTender and keep the profile current, because that is where the search starts. Then check what happens when somebody searches your service and your city. If your website does not say clearly what you do, who you do it for and where you operate, you are not on the list being drawn up.

4. Fix the gap between what you are certified for and what you say you do.

Procurement officers cross-check. An expired certification on a website, a licence number that does not match the register, a team page listing people who left, each one is a reason to move to the next business on the list rather than ring you and ask.

5. Write three case studies that survive being forwarded.

Problem, what you did, what it delivered, who it was for. One page each. These are the documents that get pasted into an internal recommendation, which is where the decision actually gets made.

6. Use the same material on the private side.

Prequalification for a tier one builder, a supplier assessment from a mining company, a vendor onboarding pack from a bank. They ask for very nearly the same evidence. Build it once for the federal rules and you have answered most of the private sector's questions as well.

The honest version

Threshold changes do not win anybody work. What they do is change who is allowed in the room, and this one has let a lot more Australian businesses in.

The businesses that will get something out of it are the ones who can be found quickly, assessed confidently and recommended internally without a conversation. That is a brand problem and a documents problem before it is ever a tendering problem.

If you have not looked at your capability statement since before November last year, that is the place to start. Open it, and read it as though you are a procurement officer with six of them on your desk and forty minutes to make a shortlist.

One caveat worth stating. The rules are detailed, they vary between corporate and non-corporate entities, and thresholds differ again for construction. Check the current Commonwealth Procurement Rules and get advice before you rely on any threshold figure for a specific bid.

Sources