The Allan Labor Government has been caught red-handed trying to spin years of incompetence at the mismanaged Bendigo Fire station as a "project update."
Labor has announced rectification works to fix its bungled "brand new" $2.4 million temporary fire station which has sat completely empty and unusable for four years right under the Premier's nose.
The temporary facility on Murphy Street in Bendigo-originally completed in June 2022 to house crews during a promised rebuild of the crumbling Hargreaves Street base-has never been occupied. It has effectively functioned as a multi-million-dollar "ghost station" because the initial build lacked compliance with basic standards, including water supply, its location on the wrong side of the railway line and the absence of an appropriate driveway-which would have forced firefighters to reverse into bays rather than driving into them from the rear of the new building.
The announcement that local builders have been appointed to fix the driveway, retrofit a diesel exhaust capture system and include an exercise area confirms that the initial build was completely bungled by the Premier and her State Labor Government.
Shadow Minister for Fire Rescue Victoria, Nick McGowan, said: "Jacinta Allan expects Bendigo residents to thank her for fixing a mistake that she made four years ago in her own backyard and did nothing about for four years.
"This temporary station has been sitting idle since 2022 because Labor bungled the initial build. To call this an 'upgrade' is a complete insult to taxpayers. This isn't a bonus feature; it's a desperate patch-up job on a multi-million-dollar failure that has sat empty for years.
"Meanwhile firefighters are still no closer to the new station they were promised in Hargreaves Street in 2019. For years now, local firefighters have been trapped in an ageing, un-fit-for-purpose station at Hargreaves Street. Last year, the front doors broke down, forcing fire trucks to exit out the back door while taxpayers paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for 24-hour traffic supervisors.
"After 27 years as the local MP, Jacinta Allan seems to have forgotten about taking care of the locals who put her into Parliament in the first place"
"Labor cannot manage money, cannot manage major projects, and our emergency service workers are the ones paying the price. Firefighters deserve real resources and real infrastructure, not spin, empty buildings, and broken promises."
