Building a Better Future: The Australian Journey Towards Achieving Sustainable Development Through Social Procurement Policies

Social procurement is a recent policy development in public administration that has blurred the traditional boundaries of governance by collaborating with the private sector for societal transformation and wicked issues resolution. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasise the significance of inclusive growth and development, prompting governments worldwide to employ social procurement policy initiatives within the infrastructure sector as a practical vehicle for achieving the transformative vision. This has given rise to a vast array of social procurement policies within Australian governments. However, the creation of these policies has also generated significant confusion, especially regarding the effective implementation and evaluation of these policies. Thus, the current study aims to assess the social procurement policy landscape affecting the Australian infrastructure sector in achieving the SDGs. By employing a qualitative research approach and a jurisdictional scan, the study identified 73 policies through the analysis of 71 documents, with Victoria and New South Wales emerging as the most proactive Australian states in social procurement policy formulation. The study has observed that state governments generally have a more comprehensive scope in their social procurement policies than territorial governments in achieving the SDGs.