For weeks Natasha Fyles has dismissed any damage at the Centre for National Resilience as just “wear and tear”, yet a tender issued last Tuesday shows the Government knew that there was damage and deliberately lied to Territorians to cover it up.
A $30,000 tender that was put out for just one day, was issued by the Government to assess the damage at the Howard Springs facility and awarded to a construction company. This all happened well before Natasha Fyles admitted that there was any real damage at the facility on Monday of this week. This comes after a tender was previously released for the replacement of close to $100,000 worth of mattresses at the facility earlier in the month.
Leader of the Opposition, Lia Finocchiaro, said “For well over a month she has denied any real damage had occurred, claiming any issues with the site could be attributed to only “wear and tear”. This is despite both Nicole Manison and Kate Worden admitting there was in fact serious damage, contradicting their Chief Minister.
“Natasha Fyles clearly knew there was damage at the facility or she wouldn’t have issued a tender for the assessment of damage.
“We have heard continued excuses by Natasha Fyles like, things got moved around, but you don’t hire a construction company to assess the impact of moved furniture.
“Territorians have frankly had a gutful of the cover up and they rightly deserve to know exactly what damage has occurred and the total and true cost of repairs.
“If there was only wear and tear, why would they put out a $30,000 tender to a construction company to assess the damage? And if the tender alone is $30,000 how much damage is there in need of repairing?
“Natasha Fyles isn’t the one paying for this damage bill, it’s the Territorian taxpayer who foots this bill, something for which she clearly has no regard,” said Mrs Finocchiaro.
ENDS