It seems to be a fact of life that if you want something built - and you want the cost to be reasonable - make sure that the government has nothing to do with organising the work !
A Wollongong public school has been allocated a budget of $ 2.5 million to provide a school hall to cater for 320 students.
It may not happen, because the bureaucrats responsible for drawing up the plans and getting the work done have blown out costs to an amazing $ 12,500 a square metre.
The estimates contain a cost of $ 126,700 for " preliminaries " - whatever that may be. Then there is $ 127,334 for " design and documentation " , followed by another $ 126,700 for " electrical services ", presumably erecting a power box for site construction.
It all boils down to " making work " for the army of civil servants who must have some sort of input to justify their jobs - and which automatically pushes any government job way out of kilter with what would be reasonable in the commercial world.
Of course it has never been any different. Governments - both Federal and state - and city councils for that matter - are simply not good at getting anything done at a reasonable cost.
Sadly, if we could somehow manage to streamline government work to fit within commercial parameters every school would have decent buildings, air conditioning and plenty of computers - and there might even be enough money left over to provide a half decent road system.
But - don't hold you breath waiting !
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