The Department of Home Affairs is tasked with protecting our sovereignty, citizenship, and social cohesion. It is responsible for central coordination, strategy, and policy leadership in relation to cyber and critical infrastructure resilience and security, immigration, border security and management, and counter-terrorism.

The Australian Border Force (ABF) is our lead domestic and international law enforcement agency securing air, maritime, and land domains, and identifying, mitigating, and responding to civil maritime security threats.

The ABF is part of Home Affairs, but operationally independent and leads national civil maritime security planning and operations, using a multi-agency, whole-of-government approaches largely through Maritime Border Command.

As part of its security surveillance and detection responsibilities, Home Affairs seeks Expressions of Interest on Airspace Surveillance Services capable of providing:

· scheduled surveillance

· targeted surveillance

· persistent surveillance.

Respondents should note this Request for Expressions of Interest (REOI) while not a Request for Tender (RFT) will form a shortlist from which respondents will be chosen for the RFT stage. For REOI, interested companies need to register their interest first to receive the REOI documentation.

The Department intends to run a multi-stage procurement process for the services, comprising this REOI and a following RFT. After completing the REOI evaluation process, the Department will select preferred respondents and issue them with an RFT that includes the detailed scope of services. The RFT phase, should it proceed, will provide more detail on the timeframes for delivery.

The closing time and date for responses is 2 pm ACT local time on  1 December 2023.

If you are after further advice on this topic or any tender opportunity, feel free to contact us. You can also subscribe to this newsletter for regular weekly updates.