Premier needs to step up and ensure State’s projects are being completed

The Premier needs to show accountability on capital works, writes

SEVERAL years ago, the Premier and Treasurer, the Hon Peter Gutwein, strategically committed to an additional 250 medical surgical beds at the Royal Hobart Hospital.

These are vacant bed spaces in the hospital proper, to be refurbished after the transfer of those 250 beds to the newer K Block building.

The spaces now sit idle at the hospital unused!

The project had immense public flow-on benefits statewide. Like many other infrastructure projects, the $250m for capital works and $190m for extra nurses to staff the new beds, was a key policy, and the funds for this project were authorised by parliament, but unfortunately, they remain unspent. It now appears that a commitment by the Premier and fully funded budget with appropriated funds by the parliament of Tasmania, means absolutely nothing.

This project and the commitment to improving the welfare of the people of Tasmania, (and this includes improving the welfare of the people in the North of the state, as the RHH is a statewide super speciality hospital) has not been fulfilled.

The Premier has been consistently told there are no resources in the private sector.

This advice is just nonsense, and does not bear examination and are not the real facts.

But why has the determined focus by the Premier, and the government, been unable to be delivered? The RHH project is not the only one dragging its feet.

The ministers in the government are mostly quite experienced, and know their jobs, and certainly the endeavour, focus and intent of the government is strategically smart. Peter Gutwein is a determined individual. The problem is that infrastructure operational outcomes are captured by far too many layers of control.

It also means the government is hamstrung by inefficiencies and very poor delivery outcomes.

Conversely, the private sector using capital will not put up with this type of action, as time is money, and if these health facilities are not built and opened, then people are not being treated. The private sector would understand this, but the public sector does not.

The government also receives no federal funds to operate the additional facilities and treat people under Medicare. Thus, delay is a lose/lose proposition for Tasmania.

There is a simple way to fix this whole infrastructure delivery issue, and that is to move the functional control to

where the funds are originated, and that is the State Treasury.

It would be easy to recreate the Capital Works Division of the Department of Treasury and Finance, and everything is run from that agency.

It used to exist 25 years ago and worked well.

Treasury are ruthless operators, and will not listen to excuses, rather they will be focused on outcomes to time and cost. And so they should.

They report to Cabinet. The Treasury drives the cashflows, which drives the projects. In the past, if you were underspent on the project, you would be in trouble.

You would need to get the project back on track.

All capital works spends are on a time and cost equation, and the government dictates getting things done, by dates and percentage of spend.

Individual agencies of government need to stand in front of the Cabinet and explain why they are dragging their feet. This is what the public expects.

It is called accountability. It is rarely enjoyable.

Our present rolled up super department – State Growth – is just too big and clumsy to get out of its own way, and has very little in-house expertise, relying mainly on contract engineering and design.

The level of project management experience is quite low and projects fall far behind due to a lack of drive.

Now readers might think that a project for an extra 250 beds might not be all that much of a big deal!

It is however, as it would increase the capacity of the RHH by about 40 per cent, and bring the 14-plus operating theatres within the hospital into service as there are no medical surgical beds for patients who are to have surgery to be accommodated in. Bed block!

At least other premiers say “we want this done and it gets done”, but in Premier Gutwein’s case nothing much happens.

It is not really his fault, but he needs to change how Capital Works are managed.

Recently, the Gutwein government got no tender responses for a West Coast roadworks project and rightfully so, with the Department of State Growth focused on the contractors taking all the liability. Thus, the contractors said no, and you can go do it. Red faces.

I think it is now in the interests of the citizens of Tasmania that Premier Peter Gutwein, who is also the Treasurer, moves the control and implementation of Capital Works back to the State Treasury and fires up all of the lagging capital works projects.

Mervin C Reed is a practising Chartered Financial Adviser, a former federal and state government senior executive service officer, and principal adviser