By Cameron Lucadou-Wells
WHAT DO YOU THINK? SCROLL TO BELOW THIS STORY TO POST A COMMENT.
A UNION has blamed the state government’s ‘‘snubbing’’ of a Hallam manufacturer for costly delays at the troubled Ararat Prison expansion.
The $350 million Ararat project on Wednesday, May 16 after Sydney-based builders St Hilliers Construction went into voluntary administration.
On its website, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union state branch blamed the project’s problems on cost and time blowouts in contracts for doors and windows made in China.
The union claimed on Wednesday that Hallam-based Steelfinne Fabrications had been overlooked in its tender bid to the state government to supply secure doors and windows for the project.
Steelfinne has supplied secure doors and windows to jails in Queensland and Tasmania and the Christmas Island immigration processing centre.
A spokeswoman for Steelfinne Fabrications said the company would make no comment on the issue.
CFMEU state secretary Bill Oliver, in a statement on the union’s website, said the the government had ‘‘made the project more expensive, and cost local jobs by sourcing materials from China, which didn’t work”.
“This has not come out of the blue. The Government have known about this issue for six months, since St Hilliers raised concerns last December.”
A spokesman for St Hilliers said the builders had failed to reach a ‘‘definitive agreement’’ for about $150 million in further funding.
‘‘The St Hilliers Group could not allow further debts to be incurred without adequate funding.
‘‘As a consequence, the group determined that the only prudent course of action was to cease work on the Ararat project and place St Hilliers Construction Pty Ltd into voluntary administration.’’
A Department of Justice spokesman said on Thursday that under a public-private partnership arrangement, a private consortium, Aegis, was responsible for the project.
‘‘It has always been and remains the consortium’s responsibility to ensure that it meets its contractual obligations.”
Opposition corrections spokeswoman Jill Hennessy said the state government should ‘‘tell us how it plans to get this project back on track and keep Victorians in work.’’.
‘‘The Baillieu Government has known about problems on the Ararat project for sometime but is blaming everyone else rather than fixing the problems.’’
For all the latest breaking news, visit greaterdandenongweekly.com.au. Follow the Greater Dandenong Weekly on Twitter @DandenongWeekly.
