When is a challenge available at all?
The GPJR Act covers “covered procurements”: procurements subject to the CPRs’ Division 2 above the relevant thresholds, with exceptions. Below-threshold, exempt, or non-Commonwealth procurements travel different roads: state regimes, council policies, and private processes each have their own complaints handling, and none of them is this Act. Name your regime before choosing a door: the CPR summary and probity frame the question.
And distinguish losing from wrongdoing. A low score on a criterion you answered thinly is a debrief matter (see debriefs), not a contravention. Review tests process legality, not evaluation generosity.
What are the three doors?
First, the agency: raise the complaint promptly, in writing, against the CPR provision or process rule you say was breached, with dates, documents, and the remedy you seek. Agencies must handle procurement complaints properly; a clear first complaint often resolves what a vague one escalates.
Second, the Procurement Coordinator: independent review within the executive, with investigation, findings, and recommendations. Useful where the agency is the problem, or where the complaint spans entities. It is not litigation and it issues no injunctions.
Third, the GPJR Act: application to the Federal Circuit and Family Court (or the Federal Court) for orders including injunctions and compensation, but within a 10-day window running from the contravention. Ten days is not a drafting timetable; it is an instruction-to-counsel timetable. Confirm the window and the standing rules against the current Act and get advice the same week the facts emerge. Nothing on this page is legal advice.
What should you do in week one of suspecting a breach?
- Preserve everything. The pack, addenda, your lodgement receipts, correspondence, debrief notes, timestamps.
- Debrief first. Facts from the debrief sharpen any complaint; skipping it weakens both.
- Name the rule. Which CPR paragraph or process requirement, breached how, with what effect on your position.
- Watch the clock. The GPJR window does not wait for the agency’s reply to your complaint.
- Instruct counsel. Before the window, not inside it.
What does this mean for the bid/no-bid call?
It means the next one, not this one. Review rarely un-awards a contract in a commercially useful timeframe; its value is systemic, and the lessons-learned row that records what the process taught you about the buyer. Firms that bid badly-run buyers repeatedly, hoping review will save them, misunderstand both instruments. Gate harder instead.