Australian public procurement is bigger than the population suggests — the Commonwealth, six states, two mainland territories, and 537 local councils, each a contracting authority. Three platforms anchor it.
What it is.The Australian Government’s official procurement portal (tenders.gov.au) — operated by the Department of Finance. Single source for Commonwealth Approaches to Market (ATMs), Multi-Use Lists, and Standing Offers. Covers all entities subject to the Commonwealth Procurement Rules.
Access pattern. Free to browse and download tender documents. Registration optional but required for email alerts and document watch-lists. Most ATMs come as a PDF Request for Tender / Request for Proposal plus attachment bundle (response schedules, draft contract, statement of requirement).
How qlows works with AusTender. Download the ATM bundle. qlows decomposes the Statement of Requirement into typed requirement rows, maps the Response Schedules to response sections, and surfaces Australian- specific compliance items: Australian Industry Participation Plans (above $20m), Indigenous Procurement Policy mandatory set-asides, Modern Slavery Act statements, Workplace Gender Equality Agency compliance.
What it is.The dominant e-procurement platform for Australian state and local councils. Runs the actual RFx process for buyers who’ve standardized on it — invitations, quotes, full RFTs, panel sourcing, contract management.
Access pattern. Free for suppliers, with a freemium model for premium features (alerting, project history). Tender documents and response forms live inside the VendorPanel workspace.
How qlows works with VendorPanel. Download the RFT bundle from VendorPanel. The structured response forms inside VendorPanel often map field-by-field to requirements in the RFT — qlows aligns each compliance matrix row to a target VendorPanel field so when you copy drafted answers back, structure is preserved. Council- specific items (local-content preferences, environmental policy attestations) surface as discrete rows.
Try qlows on an Australian RFT
Drop an AusTender or VendorPanel bundle into qlows and watch the compliance grid build itself.
Currently in private beta. Bring a live ATM, RFT, or RFQ — we'll process the full bundle including all response schedules and ship you the matrix.
Book a 30-min demo →What it is. A trans-Tasman tender aggregator and notification platform — covers AU and NZ, public and private sector. Operates on a paid-subscription model for full alerting; the underlying notices are pulled from a wide range of issuer platforms (state portals, council portals, private-sector RFx).
Access pattern.Paid subscription for alerts and document access. Once you have the document link, the actual RFx process runs on the issuer’s platform (often the issuer’s own TenderLink portal, but sometimes AusTender, VendorPanel, or an in-house tool).
How qlows works with TenderLink. Use TenderLink to discover; download the actual ITT from whichever issuer-side platform hosts it; ingest into qlows. Because TenderLink hosts a heterogeneous mix of public and private RFx, the compliance grid qlows builds is shaped by the document — public-sector items for council RFTs, commercial-evaluation items for private-sector RFPs.
Australian RFx documents share a recurring compliance backbone that qlows flags across all three platforms:
- Commonwealth Procurement Rules — value-for-money statements, mandatory consideration of SMEs above certain thresholds.
- Indigenous Procurement Policy — Mandatory Set-Aside (MSA) on certain contracts; Indigenous business certification rows.
- Modern Slavery Act 2018 attestation for entities above the reporting threshold.
- Workplace relations compliance — for Commonwealth contracts above $4m.
- State-specific items — NSW Buy NSW registration, Victorian Local Jobs First, Queensland Buy Queensland Procurement Strategy.
Different platforms, recurring compliance ground. qlows surfaces each as a discrete matrix row so the response addresses it explicitly — the bid doesn’t get disqualified for skipping a mandatory.