Ms BADGER – Minister, regarding the new Tasmanian Automotive Chamber of Commerce (TACC) automotive centre at Cambridge that there’s a 10-year lease on, can you please talk us through the process of procurement for leasing that centre and fitting it out, and the public and transparent process that would have gone through for a tenure for such a project?
Mr ELLIS – Do you mean tender or tenure?
Ms BADGER – Well, only one of them is applicable to it, minister.
Mr ELLIS – Thanks, Ms Badger. A strategic partnership between TasTAFE and the Tasmanian Automotive Chamber of Commerce is delivering a new $2.35 million purpose-built automotive training centre here in the south in Cambridge. The new training centre has been secured for a long-term lease agreement on a recently built structure at the Cambridge Industrial Park and it’s certainly an encouraging piece of work for TasTAFE if we want to be more industry aligned. I’ll pass over to the team at TasTAFE to talk through that facility and the process.
Mr GARDNER – Based on an event that happened at Campbell Street last year where our ability to deliver training was curtailed because of the flooding of the basement at Campbell Street, we’ve been focused on securing solutions to get our trainees and learners back into the classroom and to work with the industry to ensure we don’t have a backlog of training. That has meant an enormous amount of work very quickly and I want to commend the team at TasTAFE for actually finding a viable alternative solution which doesn’t tie up capital. It actually gives us a blend of capital and a long-term lease arrangement to allow us very quickly to reestablish training in the south of the state to meet the state’s and the industry’s needs while we also seek to look to longer-term solutions.
Ms BADGER – So just to be clear, there was no process that went out publicly for anyone to fit out that building, it was all done through a TACC member for the cost of a few million dollars that TAFE paid for out of their budget – is that correct?
Mr GARDNER – I’d have to refer to my CEO in terms of the process. Will, do you want to speak?
Mr McSHANE – All I can say is that it’s enormously difficult to find space at the size and magnitude that we need to be able to deliver automotive in the south. The square footage that we had in Campbell Street was over two floors so it was fairly sizeable, so to find an equivalent space that wasn’t spread over a number of sites was incredibly challenging. Our process was to work with TACC and industry in partnership to find an appropriate space we could use that was fit for purpose. We certainly recognise not having a fit-for-purpose facility would defeat what we’re aiming to do. As far as the funding goes, the money has been provided through Skills Tasmania for the $2 million as well as the $350,000 that was retained from a spray booth project that was federally funded.
Ms BADGER – So just to confirm, nothing went out publicly and all the decisions of who did the fit-out and the development was all internal.
Mr ELLIS – It’s probably worth noting, Ms Badger, the need to move quickly because of the unfortunate flood damage that occurred at the Campbell Street campus. Making sure we’re delivering training for our learners and aligning with industry is a good thing. Acting swiftly to take advantage of an opportunity with industry is a good thing. I’ll pass over to TasTAFE if there’s anything further to add.
Mr GARDNER – No, nothing further, other than the fact that within the confines of our organisation, our legislation and our governance obligations, we’re very comfortable with what we did. The most important thing is that we get learners back in the classroom as quickly as possible. We’re very clear about the value we derived from the money we spent and certainly there is no sense that there was anything untoward or inappropriate about the way the money was applied.
