$200m hub windfall for Wagners’ Wellcamp quarantine hub

The privately owned Queensland quarantine hub will still cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in rent despite the facility being placed into ‘care and maintenance’ next week.

John Wagner, left, Denis Wagner and Deputy Premier Steven Miles at the Wellcamp quarantine hub. Picture: Nev Madsen.

One of Queensland’s richest families has pocketed almost $200m in state taxpayer funding as part of a deal with the Palaszczuk government to build a quarantine facility which has barely been used and will be shuttered from Monday.

The Palaszczuk government paid $48.8m to the powerful ­family-owned Wagner Corporation to help build the Wellcamp quarantine centre and another $149.7m to rent it back for 12 months.

Wagners, which owns the adjacent airport near Toowoomba, won the contract without going through an open tender process and will own the Wellcamp site once the lease expires in April 2023.

The 1000-bed facility has housed only 730 people since it opened in February – an average of 30 guests each week – but those numbers have dwindled since mandatory quarantine was scrapped for unvaccinated international arrivals in April.

Premier Annastacia Pala­szczuk had for months refused to say how much taxpayer money had been spent on construction and rent of the centre, or its running costs, citing “commercial-in-confidence” arrangements.

But her deputy, Steven Miles, finally detailed costs under questioning at Wednesday’s budget estimates, revealing the taxpayers would spend $223.5m for Wellcamp, which has been used for just six months.

The cost to run Wellcamp for the 177 days it was open will average $1.26m a day.

Building and leasing costs have totalled $198.5m while a contract with Compass Group to provide services like catering, cleaning and security have cost $9m.

Aspen Medical, a client of Labor-aligned lobbyist firm Anacta, was awarded an $108m contract to provide health services at Wellcamp without going to tender, but only $16m has actually been spent because the facility has sat largely empty.

The state also paid $14.3m on quarantine management last year, which covered logistics for Wellcamp and hotel quarantine.

Mr Miles confirmed Wellcamp would be put into “care and maintenance under similar arrangements to those at Howard Springs in the Northern Territory”.

“It will stop hosting guests from August 1, but will remain available should the pandemic settings change,” he said.

“The Quarantine Management Taskforce and the Quarantine Management Program Board will be disbanded.

“We will consider other uses for the remainder of the [Wellcamp] lease.”

Mr Miles said hotel quarantine, relied on before Wellcamp opened on February 5, was also expensive. “In the single month before we opened Wellcamp, hotels cost us over $24m,” he said.

Labor last year used the Wellcamp centre as a political tool to criticise former prime minster Scott Morrison for hotel quarantine failures as he continuously blocked the proposal.

The Morrison government later announced it would construct a quarantine centre at the Damascus Barracks in the Brisbane suburb of Pinkenba, closer to the international airport and tertiary hospitals.

Pinkenba, which is yet to open, is on Commonwealth land, owned by federal taxpayers and could be used for future pandemics, temporary housing for refugees or ­disaster management accommodation.

The Queensland government pressed ahead with its deal with the Wagners to build Wellcamp, even though the Morrison government had already proposed Pinkenba.

Liberal National Party leader David Crisafulli said the government prioritised politics over genuine need.

“The Wellcamp waste happened while the state government was still paying tens of millions of dollars for empty hotel rooms and with a Commonwealth-owned facility coming online at Pinkenba,” he said.

“This was a trigger-happy decision to try and wedge the former federal government and this waste could’ve funded nearly 2500 nurses in the middle of a health crisis.

“A good plan for quarantine was vital. This wasn't it.”

Mr Miles said a comparative assessment found that Wellcamp was the preferred location for a quarantine centre.

“It was rated more favourably than Pinkenba but the Morrison government said we could only build quarantine facilities on Commonwealth land, a completely arbitrary rule, presumably to rule Wellcamp out of consideration,” he said. “The Wagners already owned the land, which meant we could get the facility up and running faster than any other process would allow.”

Wagner Corporation chairman John Wagner was contacted for comment.