Environment
Cost blowout on Tarkine road
MATTHEW DENHOLM, The Australian
THE cost of a controversial road to be built through Tasmania’s Tarkine rainforest has blown out by millions of dollars and the shortfall has been covered up, documents obtained by The Weekend Australian reveal.
The cost of the Tarkine Drive — through a section of the southern hemisphere’s largest tract of temperate rainforest — has blown out to at least $25million. This is $2m more than the $23m budgeted by the Bartlett government and the documents, obtained under Freedom of Information laws, suggest the final “shortfall” is likely to be even higher.
The road’s architect, Forestry Tasmania, urged the government not to own up to the blowout in its Project Development Report on the road.
On April 2, after seeing the report’s admission of a $25m price tag, FT operations manager Paul Smith emailed senior infrastructure bureaucrat Phil Cantillon, advising against use of the new figure.
“I was under the impression that we were going to show costs at $23m,” Mr Smith wrote.
“I do not think it is a good move to show the project at $25m, given the govt has announced the funding at $23m. We can have the PDR at $23m with a comment that the program will be reviewed based on costs to date and projected costs.”
A Tarkine Drive PDR, endorsed by Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources secretary Norm McIlfatrick on April 6, puts the “grand total” of the project cost at $24,959,245.
This is $2m more than budgeted and announced by the Bartlett government in the June state budget.
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Documents show DIER, the agency responsible for seeing the road built, had hoped to reduce the blowout by securing an exemption from Treasury to open-tender rules. This exemption would have allowed the project to be built by FT and two local councils by contract without an open, competitive tender. On April 6, Mr McIlfatrick asked Treasury secretary Don Challen to grant the exemption, arguing the project was “politically sensitive and may experience protests and legal challenges”.
On April 29, Mr Challen declined the request, insisting an open, competitive tender was “the most effective way to fully test, and prove, value for money, as well as capability and capacity of contractors”.
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The project is not supported by the state’s peak tourism body or the local development authority. The state and federal Liberals oppose it, along with the Greens, arguing it will destroy globally significant rainforest, further endanger the Tasmania devil and cost jobs by damaging the Tarkine’s tourist potential.