COST AND TIME BLOW OUT ON ONESKY PROJECT

RICHARD MARLES MP.
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4 years ago
COST AND TIME BLOW OUT ON ONESKY PROJECT
RICHARD MARLES MP
The OneSky Project is becoming another complete failure of this Liberal National Govermment, with an ANAO report confirming costs have more than doubled and delivery is due ten years late.

What has this Liberal National Government been doing for the past six years to oversee such a large a blow out in delivery time and cost?

In its scathing report, the ANAO has said in relation to the contractual arrangements of OneSky:

‘If the current contracted timeframes are achieved, there will be a more than ten year delay (from 2015 to 2026) in the replacement of the existing separate civil and military systems compared with the timeframe envisaged at the start of the procurement process.’
 
‘The ceiling price under the target cost incentive model that was then adopted is more than double the price submitted by the successful tenderer in its response to the 2013 request for tender.’

‘There is inadequate assurance that the contracted acquisition price is consistent with a value for money outcome for the capability being acquired.’

When Labor first initiated this project from the 2009 National Aviation White Paper – we identified benefits from synchronising civil and military air traffic management through the procurement of a single solution to replace the separate systems of Airservices Australia and the Department of Defence.

Under this Liberal National Government’s watch this project has seen failure:

‘Negotiations took so long that the offer submitted by the successful tenderer expired…’

After failure:

‘Negotiations also resulted in a late change in the contracting model from the one that had been presented to the market in June 2013.’

After failure:

‘The delays in negotiating and finalising an acquisition contract … required the lives of the existing systems to be extended beyond that which was originally envisaged.’
 
This Liberal National Government has overseen a massive ten year blow out with contracts having to be constantly renegotiated leading to ANAO concern over inadequate assurances of value for money.  
 
Labor expects that the powerful Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit will seriously consider this report and the government’s failure to demonstrate value for money.
 
Hardworking Australians who pay their taxes, rightly expect the Government not to waste their money.
 
In a failure of Government, the Liberals and Nationals incompetence and inability to demonstrate value for money has once again been exposed by the Auditor-General.