Federal ministers were forced to approve tens of millions of dollars in last-minute spending on Parliament House just weeks before the massive building was to be opened by the Queen.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Recently declassified cabinet documents suggest the budget blow out created tension when ministers discussed the expensive project on February 2, 1988.
''Any announcement on additional funding for this project will probably provoke criticism, regardless of its rationale,'' ministers were told in a submission.
Administrative services minister Stewart West was told to delete a superlative from his proposed statement to Parliament.
The draft statement, attached to his submission, showed he was going to give Parliament a progress report on "what is without doubt Australia's greatest bicentennial project, the new Parliament House".
The problem of finishing the building was further complicated by Prime Minister Bob Hawke's decision to increase the ministry by three, forcing cabinet to authorise funding for the fit-out of three additional suites in the ministerial wing.
Two of the suites had been deleted from the project as part of a cost-cutting exercise in 1986.
The cabinet meeting had to approve almost $21 million in additional funding for the project, bringing the cost of the building, at that stage, to $1.047 billion.
A total of $19.2 million worth of work had been deferred or deleted during cost cutting in 1986-87.
The cost of reinstating these works in 1988 was $26.4 million, ministers were told.
After initially deferring work on the second floor library, the cost to complete it went from $1.7 million to $4.2 million.
Under the heading ''insolvencies'', the submission says the Parliament House Construction Authority was seeking an additional $1.74 million in the building budget for "salvaging the suspended hydraulics contractor with contracts in the south and west zones".
"The contractor's potential insolvency was caused primarily by the effects of the plumbers' dispute which significantly reduced his workforce and caused massive disruption to his program of work," it says.
Industrial problems, including a 14-week closure of the project when building workers went on strike seeking higher pay and severance entitlements, became a major headache for the construction authority. The strike set work back by an estimated six months and a shortage of suitable construction workers also delayed progress.
The draft statement for Mr West to read to Parliament recalled that in his previous update on the project he had said the government was looking to unions and contractors for their full co-operation to achieve completion on target for the May 9 opening and for the first sitting in August.
"As honourable Members can see from my report, some 11 short weeks before Her Majesty opens the new Parliament House, there can be no doubt about its readiness for the event," the statement said.
"This could only have happened with that co-operation and commitment that I asked for and that has obviously been given."
The submission says work achieved in that quarter included commissioning of the staff bar.
The bar was subsequently closed and more recently converted into a child minding centre.
"The Great Verandah marble columns and skylights are complete and Coat of Arms has been erected," the submission says.
Some furniture had to be changed when the Hawke Labor government restricted the supply of rainforest timbers.
As previously reported, a proposed bowling green to cost $1 million was abandoned during the cost cutting.
