Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

I note the comments of the minister just a moment ago, but, as I made clear when reporting back on behalf of the Labor members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, the Labor members did not support this project at the time. Labor wants officers of Border Force to have the resources and facilities that they need to keep Australia's borders strong. But during the inquiry the committee identified issues with the project's proposed costing. The committee disagreed with the Department of Immigration and Border Protection about the incentives and took the view that interest payable on loans should form part of the total cost of the project. We also experienced difficulties with the department throughout the inquiry and were left unimpressed by the way the department provided information to the committee on this project.

Labor is not convinced that this proposal represents value for Australian taxpayers. I can summarise the reasons why. I repeat: we understand and support the need to have strong border protection measures in place, and we also understand the changing nature of Border Force operations in Australia. However, the interest payments on the incentive payments do not appear to be properly accounted for in the figures provided to the committee. Secondly, the cost-benefit analysis savings that were reported to the committee are based on a 30-year projection of the project. The lease period of these premises is for 15 years plus two five-year extension rights. That means a total of 25 years. There is no doubt that unforeseen expenditure will occur between now and the next 30 years, and to try and extrapolate savings over such a long period can only be based on speculative figures at best. Thirdly, the fit-out costs of this project, in comparison to other fit-out costs, also appear to be somewhat high. Lastly, the square-metre lease cost of the airport precinct building also appears to be high, based on other market rates and the availability of other buildings. For those reasons we believe that the project does not represent good value for Australian taxpayers. For those reasons Labor members of the Public Works Committee opposed this expenditure.

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