A Labor Government would have to transfer 700 Department of Environment, Land and Planning staff from Tuggeranong to Gungahlin if its new-building plan is to be economic. This was the Liberals’ response yesterday to Labor’s election promise to build two new public-service buildings in Gungahlin and Civic at a total cost of $80 million. Labor says construction the buildings will give a boost to employment in the ACT and save the Government $11.7 million a year in rent. Last year the department had an occupational health and safety dispute over the condition of the Overall Building in Northbourne Avenue which houses about 450 DELP staff. That building, of about 7000 square metres, is owned by the GIO.
A further 700 DELP staff are housed in leased premises at the Homeworld building in Tuggeranong. The Government says DELP will move to a new building in Gungahlin and the co-ordinating departments would move into a new Civic building, creating greater efficiencies and higher standard public-service offices.
The Liberals say, however, that $80 million would buy about 32,000 square metres of top space. If the money were to be split about evenly, it would mean a huge amount of spare space at Gungahlin unless DELP staff at Tuggeranong were moved into the building along with the staff from Northbourne Avenue. Opposition Leader, Kate Carnell, said it was unacceptable for a policy to be put forward that would involve major movements of staff without consultation.