The CLP and public service are at odds over Acacia $61m cost blowout claim

The CLP has been forced to explain discrepancies between itself and the public service over the botched Acacia healthcare program rollout.

Opposition leader Selena Uibo and Shadow Attorney-General Chansey Paech speak to media outside Parliament House.

Differences between the Health Minister and the public service have exposed cracks in the new government’s response to the Acacia rollout fiasco.

This masthead last week exclusively revealed explosive details about the botched system roll-out after documents released under Freedom of Information legislation highlighted serious failures in its implementation.

The documents revealed the rollout into Royal Darwin and Palmerston hospitals placed patients and staff at risk, contrary to government and departmental denials at the time.

This masthead lodged the FOI application in February, with the documents only released 11-months later in December.

The documents revealed multiple medicos and health bureaucrats who had raised serious concerns about associated health risks.

Seeking to politically exploit failures by the previous Labor Government and link them with the current four-member opposition, Health Minister Steve Edgington fronted media on Tuesday to upbraid Selena Uibo, his predecessor in the job.

Health Minister Steve Edgington. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

But his accusation that the Acacia project’s budget blew out by $61m from $259m to $320m contradicted an answer provided to this masthead three weeks earlier by the Department of Corporate and Digital Development (DCDD) to a question about additional spending.

Asked whether DCDD had any cost estimates for how much additional spending would be needed to make Acacia fit-for-purpose for Royal Darwin and Palmerston Hospital EDs, the department said the allocation “through the Budget process has not changed”.

Asked this week by this masthead to clarify whether there had been a budget blowout, the Department stuck to its guns, maintaining the additional $61m to finalise the project had come from “reprioritising existing funding”.

When this masthead sought to clarify the differences in language between the Department and minister, it was offered a briefing by senior figures from the Department of Health and the DCDD.

NT Opposition Leader Selena Uibo. Picture: Fia Walsh.

The offer followed 11 months of silence while this masthead negotiated the long and expensive FOI route to information attainment.

A statement from the Government’s spin unit denied Minister Edgington was at odds with the two departments, despite the alternate interpretations of budget blowout.

“Minister Edgington was nothing but open and transparent on Tuesday revealing the budget for the Acacia project had blown out from $259m to $320m,” the spokesman said.

“Why this $320m figure wasn’t made public earlier is for others to answer because Minister Edgington was only made aware of this figure on Tuesday.

“About two years ago, the Health and DCDD departments increased the budget for the project to $320m, representing a $61m blowout on the original budget.

“The $61m blow out was achieved by re-prioritising existing funding. As of December 2024, the remaining funding to complete the project is just under $50m.”

Opposition Leader Selena Uibo said the CLP was manipulating numbers for political purposes.

“Territorians should be very concerned that their Health Minister prioritises personal politics over doing what he was elected to do,” She said.

“The CLP had a history of manipulating numbers in Opposition. It is incredibly disappointing they are up to their old tricks in Government. It’s time they got on with governing instead of game playing.”

Originally published as The CLP and public service are at odds over Acacia $61m cost blowout claim