Ms FINOCCHIARO - 2012-11-28
In his previous answer, the minister described the major budget blowout with the Asset Management System project delivery. Can he inform the House on when AMS was supposed to be operational and where the cost blowouts occurred?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Drysdale for the question.
I know you are very interested in this subject because you want to see bigger investment in your electorate of Drysdale. It is very hard when we are dealing with government waste, debt and mismanagement. However, I am very happy to give you a time line of how things happened so you can get to the bottom of it.
Let me explain, member for Drysdale. The AMS project began in 2007. It was designed to replace individual departmental asset management systems for a whole-of-government asset management approach. The project was scoped and estimated by the Labor government at $14m. Tenders were called in 2008, they came in for $27.3m.
You would have thought the alarm bells would start to ring when you thought it was going to cost $14m, and the tenders came in at $27.3m. However, alarm bells were not heard by the former Treasurer, the now Leader of the Opposition, or the former Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. Instead, they negotiated the price down to $19.73m - $19.73m on a price that had come in at $27.3m.
The only thing that had been achieved in the 2007-08 tender process until November 2011 was that budget blowout which we know reached $30m.
The system was not made to go live until April 2012. That is when it was fully switched on, in full knowledge that the system was not working. Unfortunately, when they turned AMS on they turned all the other legacy systems - the old systems - off. So we were put in an all or nothing situation by the time of the changeover.
By October 2012 the investment had reached $26.2m, which is up substantially from the original estimate of $14m. Now we are told we will need an extra $40m to start to fix this - so we are up to $30m and now we need another $40m for something that was supposed to cost $14m. Currently just, for your interest member for Drysdale, the system is operating at 11%.
Rents are disappearing, contractors’ details are being strewn all over the Territory, nothing seems to be working with AMS, and I am very happy to have lumbered on my shoulders an AMS system that is not quite working. This shows the cavalier approach by the previous Labor government.
This was failing, they knew it was failing. They were not in control of it, it lacked leadership, throwing good money after bad, and now we are looking at a $70m project and we still do not know if it will work because of the design concept right from the start. It is a significant failure.
When the former Treasurer, the Leader of the Opposition, starts asking us about budgets, let me tell you that I have to put $40m into something we cannot even see, on a project plan you designed that has failed more than doubly to date and is operating at 11%. It is a complete sham and I would rather be building the duplication of Vanderlin Drive, working on Lee Point Road, or fixing our other major infrastructure components of the Northern Territory.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Drysdale for the question.
I know you are very interested in this subject because you want to see bigger investment in your electorate of Drysdale. It is very hard when we are dealing with government waste, debt and mismanagement. However, I am very happy to give you a time line of how things happened so you can get to the bottom of it.
Let me explain, member for Drysdale. The AMS project began in 2007. It was designed to replace individual departmental asset management systems for a whole-of-government asset management approach. The project was scoped and estimated by the Labor government at $14m. Tenders were called in 2008, they came in for $27.3m.
You would have thought the alarm bells would start to ring when you thought it was going to cost $14m, and the tenders came in at $27.3m. However, alarm bells were not heard by the former Treasurer, the now Leader of the Opposition, or the former Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. Instead, they negotiated the price down to $19.73m - $19.73m on a price that had come in at $27.3m.
The only thing that had been achieved in the 2007-08 tender process until November 2011 was that budget blowout which we know reached $30m.
The system was not made to go live until April 2012. That is when it was fully switched on, in full knowledge that the system was not working. Unfortunately, when they turned AMS on they turned all the other legacy systems - the old systems - off. So we were put in an all or nothing situation by the time of the changeover.
By October 2012 the investment had reached $26.2m, which is up substantially from the original estimate of $14m. Now we are told we will need an extra $40m to start to fix this - so we are up to $30m and now we need another $40m for something that was supposed to cost $14m. Currently just, for your interest member for Drysdale, the system is operating at 11%.
Rents are disappearing, contractors’ details are being strewn all over the Territory, nothing seems to be working with AMS, and I am very happy to have lumbered on my shoulders an AMS system that is not quite working. This shows the cavalier approach by the previous Labor government.
This was failing, they knew it was failing. They were not in control of it, it lacked leadership, throwing good money after bad, and now we are looking at a $70m project and we still do not know if it will work because of the design concept right from the start. It is a significant failure.
When the former Treasurer, the Leader of the Opposition, starts asking us about budgets, let me tell you that I have to put $40m into something we cannot even see, on a project plan you designed that has failed more than doubly to date and is operating at 11%. It is a complete sham and I would rather be building the duplication of Vanderlin Drive, working on Lee Point Road, or fixing our other major infrastructure components of the Northern Territory.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016