Economy
Govt pours $25m into offices
THE Bartlett Government has approved an extra $25 million of funding to decorate plush new offices for its Cabinet ministers.
And senior bureaucrats at a time when state health, hospital and disability budgets are being pruned and cut
The Government’s latest financial report reveals it plans to spend
$25.5 million over the next three years furnishing and fitting out government offices in the soon-to-constructed $100 million Parliament Square development close to Hobart’s waterfront.
But no public announcement has yet been made by the Government explaining its lavish spending plans for its new offices.
Most other changed spending priorities earmarked in the latest December financial figures such as extra money for frontline nurses, teachers, police and park rangers have been unveiled with great fanfare by the Bartlett Government as pre-election sweeteners.
The State Government controversially sold the block of land behind Hobart’s Parliament House facing the Salamanca waterfront area to selected preferred private developer, the Citta Property Group, for just $7.5 million last year.
But since the development deal was signed, the Bartlett Government has found an additional $25 million of taxpayers’ money to put towards the development’s final completion costs.
Since June, Treasurer Michael Aird has allocated $1.5 million to be spent this year and a massive $12 million in each of the next two years on general “Parliament Square fit-out costs”.