“I was aghast to hear what Minister Burns said in parliament when he stated that the houses I inspected in Wadeye and the photo’s of house 232 tabled in federal parliament were just refurbishments, said Senator Scullion.

“Perhaps the first thing that a minister should do is check their facts. These houses were all designated rebuilds and attracted a budget of $200,000 as determined by the Alliance contractor and agreed to by his department officials.

“Secondly the alliance contractors did not revisit these houses to do additional work because of any so called efficiency. How is it efficient to move people out of a house and do part of the job, and then go back again once the families had moved back in?

“The truth of the matter is that after the federal government inspected the work delivered by the NT government for a budget of $200,000 they demanded that the job be done properly.

“The NT government are responsible for ensuring that value for money and quality work is being achieved and it is incongruous to think that any reasonable person could have inspected those houses after a rebuild was said to be completed and determined that they were fit for families to move back into, said Senator Scullion.

“This nonsense being spread by the government that the reason refurbishments now only incorporate urgent health and safety maintenance in order to make the money go further also needs to stop, said Senator Scullion.

“There is $75,000 provided for each of the 2500 house renovation and despite only an estimated $25,000 being spent per house, not one additional house over the original 2500 renovations has been announced under the $672m budget.

“There is something seriously wrong if it costs $50,000 in overheads and management costs to deliver a mere $25,000 worth of work.

“There is an ANAO review into SIHIP shortly due for release as well as an independent review into the financial arrangements of the program. The findings of these reviews should make very interesting reading, said Senator Scullion.

Download media release:
110810 NT Government incompetence revealed through SIHIP.pdf