This item really surprised me last week.

As I said, if you set the task for Cr Scott and I to clean some hallways and toilets, it would roughly take us the same amount of time to complete the job.

Given that pay for cleaners is pretty much uniform, the fact that someone could do it dramatically cheaper should raise eyebrows.

My question last week set the cat amongst the pigeons. It was simply: Should we be concerned that the selected tendered is 25% cheaper than average of all the tenderers and with a pretty ordinary average qualitative score?

When I asked the simple question as to whether anyone had asked the preferred tenderer as to why they are so cheap, the Chamber turned into a game of pass the parcel! While there were many great attempts to answer the question – no one actually did and it was clear that no one had asked the tenderer as to why they are so cheap.

So either we’ve been dramatically over paying for the last few years and travelling on the Queen Mary or we’re about to go on a mystery long sea voyager with the cheapest tenderer.

What should bother everyone in this Chamber, is that you couldn’t get a straight answer.

I’ve said it before that I pity anyone taking on the task of tendering to the City of Sydney and it’s no wonder we’re often very short of tenderers.