‘‘Intelligence is never too dear,’’ quoted Opposition Leader Tony Abbott as he spoke at the opening of spy agency ASIO’s new $700million headquarters on Tuesday.
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Many of the capital’s citizens might reflect on those words – first spoken by Elizabethan super spy Sir Francis Walsingham – as they consider the difficult process that led to the (near) completion of the lakeside behemoth. There were complaints by the building’s neighbours that they had been duped over the size and scale of the complex, the bitter contractual disputes between the government’s builder Lend Lease and local contractors, the business collapses, the cost blowouts, delays and allegations of security breaches by Chinese computer hackers.
Then there is the look of the place, now called the Ben Chifley Building after the prime minister who first launched ASIO.
Critics say the complex, now Canberra’s largest office block, seems to lurk among the foliage on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin, with its upper stories peering furtively over the tree tops.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, ASIO Director General David Irvine and Mr Abbott all spoke at the building’s official opening on Tuesday morning, but only Mr Abbott acknowledged, obliquely, that it had been far from smooth sailing between conception in 2006 and completion, slated for September.
‘‘It is fitting that this building should have been started under the Howard government, opened under the Rudd-Gillard government and operated under whichever government emerges after the next election,’’ Mr Abbott said. ‘‘As the Crown’s first spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, said, ‘intelligence is never too dear’, and that’s what I thought when I looked around the magnificent new premises.’’
The Chifley building will have a price tag of more than $700million by the time it is fitted out.
In more bad news for Canberrans, the unsightly blue tarpaulins lining Parkes Way outside the building are to be with us for a couple of months yet, as the 2000 spies who will call the building ‘‘the office’’ prepare to move in, a process that is due for completion in September.
While Mr Rudd and Mr Abbott came together to celebrate the building’s opening, the Australian Greens were demanding that the federal government settle the disputes that are still raging with local builders over contracts at the site.
The party’s small business spokesman, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, said the Prime Minister was insensitive to revel in the opening while some Canberra small businesses hadstill not been paid for their work on ASIO.
‘‘Today Prime Minister Rudd put on a show for the cameras at the new ASIO building while the $704million federal government building project has resulted in an estimated 100 small businesses not being paid for their hard work,’’ Senator Whish-Wilson said on Tuesday afternoon.
‘‘Australian businesses are suffering over this and I’m calling on the Prime Minister to pay the ASIO building bill, including outstanding monies owed to contractors.’’