Lack of assessment causes Commuter Car Park Project cost blow out

The Morrison government’s failure to appropriately undertake assessments for the $660m Commuter Car Park Project has seen some car park project costs blow out by more than 500 per cent, costing the taxpayer at least $70m.

Costs in the Morrison government’s Commuter Car Park Fund have blown out by more than 500 per cent in some cases. Picture: Getty Images

The Morrison government’s failure to appropriately undertake assessments for the $660m Commuter Car Park Project has seen some project costs blow out by more than 500 per cent, costing the taxpayer at least $70m.

In a scathing report on Monday, the Australian National Audit Office found the program was not effective or merit-based, with projects selected by then minister Alan Tudge’s office in conjunction with the Prime Minister’s office.

The Audit Office found the Department of Infrastructure’s approach to “identifying and selecting” projects was “not appropriate”, which increased the risk that selected projects would “not deliver the desired outcomes at the expected cost to the Australian government.”

The Australian can reveal taxpayers have borne the cost of the lack of any assessment work, with projects in Panania, Woy Woy and Berwick ballooning by tens of millions of dollars. Planning for other car parks was also not sufficiently complete to enable an estimate of their potential cost.

Each car space in the Panania car park cost $166,000, 522 per cent above the benchmark price, with costs soaring from the $600,000 approved in funding to $7.5m. In Woy Woy, the cost of the proposed car park has increased by $4.4m to $5m, the result of each car space costing 434 per cent more than anticipated.

In June last year, the Department of Infrastructure paid consultancy firm Turner and Townsend $50,000 to determine cost benchmarking for each car space. They found the average cost per space should fall between $26,700 and $39,600.

While in Melbourne’s southeast, the Morrison government has been forced to pump an additional $58.7m into the Berwick project, the result of taxpayers paying $115,000 per space, around 300 per cent more than expected, which has seen the price surge from $5.5m to $64.2m.

Despite the Auditor-General finding none of the 47 projects were selected by the Department of Infrastructure, and 87 per cent were in Coalition-held or targeted seats, Urban Infrastructure Minister Paul Fletcher denied his predecessor, or Scott Morrison, had engaged in any wrongdoing.

In a statement, Mr Fletcher said with planning activities still underway, per space costs in Woy Woy and Panania were “not yet finalised”, and cited the Victorian government’s project proposal which showed the Berwick car park had a benefit-cost reaction of 3.34.

Parking Australia chief executive Stuart Norman said the price per space should come in around $35,000 to $40,000, as he labelled the Berwick project as “exorbitant”. He said in many cases, new construction methods meant these car parks could be built “as low as $30,000 per space”.

Opposition urban infrastructure spokesman Andrew Giles blasted the Morrison government, saying Australians were sick of infrastructure projects being used “for partisan rorts and some cheap headlines.”

“We’ve seen it with commuter car parks but we see it right across this government’s broader infrastructure program with undercooked and under planned projects announced purely to pick up votes in marginal seats or to grab a cheap headline,” he said.