Goulburn Murray Water splashes $1.2m on office refit
Irrigators spent 2019-20 battling to survive on low water allocations, while more than $1.2 million was spent on a refit of the executive headquarters.
GOULBURN Murray Water’s executives spent a large part of last season debating the merits of installing acoustic furniture, corporate-coloured carpet and a prayer room as part of a $1.2 million refit of their Tatura headquarters, while their irrigator customers battled for survival.
A Victorian Nationals freedom-of-information request has produced more than 400 pages of emails, power point presentations, board minutes and staff survey results from 2019-20 that show GMW managing director Charmaine Quick and her executive team drilled into minute detail on the refit, which was part of its Project Transformation.
GMW staff were asked to test a range of noise reducing “acoustic” furniture as part of the refit, including the Muffle booth set and pod, Meta octagon with rear tables, Ziggy modular and Quadro highback lounges.
Emails show executives were caught up in conflicts over whether to install “phone booths” and even a prayer room, an idea that was eventually dumped after warnings that “if we provide something to suit some religions, then others may have requests that we will need to deliver”.
While most of the documents were blacked out, enough detail remains to show many GMW staff were uncomfortable spending such a large sum on a major office refit in the midst of 2019-20, when irrigators were facing low allocations and skyrocketing water prices.
One email dated January 21 last year, states “negative feedback” from staff included comments that the refit was “unnecessary and insensitive with current staff job cuts and for customers during these hard times” and they were “doubtful of any benefits”.
GMW strategy and services planning manager Daniel Irwin even emailed the executive leadership team a month earlier warning there was: “still some work to do with acceptance of spending money on office changes at this particular time”.
Victorian Nationals water spokeswoman Stephanie Ryan said the expenditure was a slap in the face to irrigators struggling to pay skyrocketing water bills.
“GMW’s leadership team need to be worried about the sustainability of their customers, not the colour of their carpet,” Ms Ryan said. “It’s disappointing they did not listen to their staff who are clearly more in tune with the sentiments of their customers.”
Under the budget $340,230 was allocated to replacing the Casey Street headquarters carpet, $268,512 for furniture and $85,000 to further reduce the impacts of noise, with much of the remainder spent on painting, lowering partitions and architects.
Torrumbarry irrigator Andrew Leahy said he was “gobsmacked to see GMW so out of touch with irrigators. “It’s really upsetting that they don’t understand their own customers.”
A GMW spokesman defended the refit, stating: “the building at 40 Casey Street was built in 1994 (and) old, reused carpet was glued down many times, becoming unsafe in areas” and “the building had never been fully painted internally in its 26-year life”.
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