The Auditor-General has delivered a scathing assessment of the Liberals' failed privatisation agenda, with a disastrous management services contract slammed in his annual report.
In December 2021, the former Marshall Liberal Government signed a $4.2 billion contract to provide private management services across more than 3500 SA Government facilities over almost 12 years.
This Liberal decision to fully outsource all service delivery for facilities such as schools, hospitals and office blocks has seen significant issues arise, as highlighted in the Auditor-General's annual report published yesterday.
Issues of particular concern include:
- Non-compliance with SA Government procurement policies required by the contract
- subcontractors engaged who charge above the maximum trade ceiling rates established under the contract, with agencies charged at rates higher than those allowed for some works
- failure to meet KPI targets for response and restoration times for breakdown jobs, and preventative maintenance work often not completed within required time frames.
This points to a failure of the contract signed by the former Liberal government, which sought to cut costs by hiving off responsibility to the private sector and has left South Australians carrying the can.
This is yet another example of South Australians being left worse off by the Liberals' privatisation zeal, which saw the disastrous outsourcing of road maintenance contracts and the SA Housing Trust maintenance, as well as the privatisation of Adelaide's train and tram operations – which the Malinauskas Government has now successfully reversed, honouring our election commitment.
As put by Tom Koutsantonis
The former Liberal government's obsession with outsourcing continues to leave South Australians worse off.
The wholesale outsourcing of management services is possibly one of the worst contracts the former government inflicted on South Australia. We warned the former Liberal government that outsourcing these contracts would be a mistake, and unfortunately we have been proven correct.
The Auditor-General is rightly scathing of this Liberal legacy, which the current South Australian Government has worked extensively to try and rectify.
We continue to pursue all options to ensure service delivery improves because the people of South Australia deserve better.
