“It’s got more poles in the ground than a Warsaw cemetery”

THE political storm hanging over the Palmerston hospital continued to rage yesterday, with Labor pledging to conduct an audit into the project if elected in August.

Opposition Health spokeswoman Lynne Walker made the promise in response to news the budget for the project had ballooned to $210 million, a spike from the originally projected price tag of $150 million.

“One of the first things we would need to do as a very high priority would be to conduct an audit,” Ms Walker said.

“Have federal and Territory health ministers and bureaucrats together around the table to see where this project is at, and what we can do to accelerate it to get those doors open at the Palmerston Regional Hospital as soon as we possibly can.”

The Labor audit would put the microscope on to where money is being spent in the HEALTH MINISTER JOHN ELFERINK project. “We can’t understand from opposition why these budget blowouts have occurred. We know there’s all of those factors like incompetence of government, the revolving door of health ministers, the fact that they decided to change the site,” she said. “The project has been plagued by scandal and stunts.”

Chief Minister Adam Giles requested an extra $61.7 million from the Federal Government to cover fit-outs, IT systems and operational ex- penses, the NT News revealed yesterday.

Health Minister John Elferink laughed off suggestions the project had so far been, as Ms Walker described, an “unmitigated disaster” and pointed to progress happening at the building site. “Have you actually physically gone out and had a look at the ‘unmitigated disaster’? It’s got more poles in the ground than a Warsaw cemetery,” Mr Elferink said.

He challenged Labor’s need to wait until after the election to call for an audit.

“(Ms Walker) can do that now. She doesn’t need to wait until she comes into government, why doesn’t she just refer it to the Auditor General? She’s been around long enough to know how the system works ... she could start that audit right now, but of course she doesn’t want the answer to the audit, she just wants to say ‘we’re going to audit’.”

PAGE 10: Our say