Work in progress. Invitation only while we build.
Australian government spending, connected.
It is all public, and none of it is in one place. Start with a question rather than a name: which buyers spend in your category, which programmes fund work like yours, what an agency pays its executives, what a parliamentarian claimed last quarter.
Rank it, chart it, export it, or just ask in plain English, with every figure tracing back to the notice it came from. Then follow what matters to you and hear when it moves: a contract ending, a grant round opening, a panel taking new members.
Work coming up for one firm
business name hidden in this previewa consulting firm
| Buyer | Ends | Value |
|---|---|---|
| business name hidden in this preview | Mar 2027 | $1.4m |
| business name hidden in this preview | May 2027 | $760k |
| business name hidden in this preview | Jun 2027 | $410k |
Example rows. The buyers are hidden here and named in the product, because they are on the public record. Across government 37,048 federal contracts end within the year.
What the archive holds
- 1.24m
- contracts
- 287k
- grants
- 1.23m
- expense claims
- 5,268
- panels
Federal contract notices
Federal grant awards
Parliamentary expenses
Standing offers
Not all of it. A great deal of it, and more every week. Counted on 31 August 2026, and we are still filling in the older years, so read every total here as a floor.
You know how this usually goes.
Contracts in one portal. Grants in another. Expenses, pay and staff numbers in three more, some of them as spreadsheets. Nothing connects them, and nothing tells you when the thing you care about changes. So we joined them up and set them to work. Four of the jobs it does:
See the whole organisation, not one portal's slice.
A business's contracts, grants, panel seats and state awards are published in different places under different ids. Matched on its ABN they become one page, and 6,427 businesses hold both a federal contract and a federal grant, which on the two portals read as two unrelated organisations. A buyer works the same way: what it spends and what it funds beside what it pays its executives and how many people work there, which is a procurement portal and an annual report joined up.
One business, four separate records
business name hidden in this previewone page, matched on its ABN
- Federal contracts24 · $8.4m
- Federal grants3 · $610k
- Panel memberships2
- State contracts6 · $1.2m
Example figures. Three portals publish these under three different ids. Where they apply, registered-charity status, company tax and R&D claims sit on the same page.
The news comes to you.
Press Watch on a category, a buyer, a business or a panel. From then on a contract awarded, a panel opening to new members or a grant round going live lands in front of you, usually the day it is published. Miss a panel window and you can wait years for the next one; that is the line we chase hardest.
While you were getting on with the job
Press Watch once. This is what turns up.
- A panel in your category is open to new members. 21 days left to apply
- A business you watch won new work. $840k over three years
- A grant round opened in a programme you follow. applications close 14 October
Examples of real alert types. In the product each line names the panel, the business and the programme, and links straight to the thing itself.
Size up the funding before you write a word.
Which programmes fund work like yours, who they funded last time, and what a funded application was actually worth. You write a sharper bid when you know the going rate.
Grants approved, 2025-26
$13.6bn
across 42,598 grants, counted in the year they were approved
Charity status comes from the ACNC register, matched by ABN. A recipient without a match is counted as not a charity, so the charity share is a floor rather than a full picture. No recipient is named here; in the product each grant links to its published notice.
Know how contested the work really is.
Nearly half the open tenders that state a response count drew exactly one response. We measure that corner by corner, so you can tell a real race from a done deal before you spend a fortnight on the paperwork.
Open tenders that drew one response
44.7%
of the open tenders where the buyer stated how many responses arrived
Each square is one in a hundred. 18,068 tenders drew a single response, out of the 40,459 that gave a number.
An open tender is published to everyone, so one response is a fact about how the market answered rather than about how the buyer ran it. Most notices state no count, so the share is taken over the ones that do and the card says which. No business is named.
The cards are drawn to match the product rather than photographed from it, and none of these figures is published as a figure anywhere else. No business is named here, and no agency either. Inside the product both are, because both are on the public record. Measured on 31 August 2026.
All sorts of people come here.
Same records. Four quite different questions. We do not ask which one is yours, and we do not keep a record of what you look up.
If you sell to government
The work you want already belongs to somebody. Find out who holds it, what it pays, how they won it, and when it ends. Then watch the category. You hear about the replacement while there is still time to do something about it.
If you are looking for funding
Which programmes are open. Which are only forecast. Who has been funded before, and how much they got. That last one is the useful one, because you can see what a funded application was worth before you sit down to write yours.
If you are reporting on it
Six portals that do not talk to each other is the usual way to research this, and it is why so much of it goes unreported. Here they are joined, so you can follow one business across departments and streams, and read its charity registration, company tax and R&D claims on the same page. Every figure traces back to the notice it came from, so you can export it, cite it, and check us.
If you work in government
You publish most of this. You may still find it easier to read here than as a folder of spreadsheets. Look a supplier up across departments, or see how you compare with agencies your own size on the things you are measured on.
Being built in the open
Wattle Branch is invitation only while we get it right. There is no sign-up form yet and we are not taking payment. Everything described on this page is built and running. What is missing is the front door. If you already have an account, sign in from the top of this page.