Julia Gillard Comm. Halls signs should have safety cautions as well as the dedications that the ALP have demanded.
A mole in the industry has sent me information about the standard of building and the relentless pissing of money up against walls, any walls.
Here are some shots of the type of avoidable errors which have been made in the haste of the government to spend the money.
Please remember, on big projects a building is designed and plans are drawn. When the men on the ground have to transfer those pictures to the three dimensional structure which will be the end product. They follow those plans. If there is a problem or what they see as an error they must put in a report which advises of a supposed error in the plan and request that the plan be changed, otherwise they must follow the plan no matter what (of course, if it's a OH&S issue they'd stop construction). Usually this change request or query takes a short time to sort out and they have a reply in 24 hours or less. But in the school hall cases short cuts have been taken, money for penalties for slow construction or hold-ups has been waived (or vice versa) and no variation/query requests have been acted upon for days. Some haven't even bothered to reply to the variation and so construction has has to continue.
A mole in the industry has sent me information about the standard of building and the relentless pissing of money up against walls, any walls.
Here are some shots of the type of avoidable errors which have been made in the haste of the government to spend the money.
Please remember, on big projects a building is designed and plans are drawn. When the men on the ground have to transfer those pictures to the three dimensional structure which will be the end product. They follow those plans. If there is a problem or what they see as an error they must put in a report which advises of a supposed error in the plan and request that the plan be changed, otherwise they must follow the plan no matter what (of course, if it's a OH&S issue they'd stop construction). Usually this change request or query takes a short time to sort out and they have a reply in 24 hours or less. But in the school hall cases short cuts have been taken, money for penalties for slow construction or hold-ups has been waived (or vice versa) and no variation/query requests have been acted upon for days. Some haven't even bothered to reply to the variation and so construction has has to continue.
First is the door... see a problem? The thought is that it will be turned into a window. Too bad about the lack of entry/egress points in the hall. (Sorry, having trouble with the external pic, it keeps telling me it is open somewhere... but it isn't!)
Then there are the windows. The ones down low...
Then the windows in the top of the hall. That's going to be annoying if you're trying to fit blackout curtains...
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These are in the southern region of suburban Melbourne, and there is no allowance in the construction tendering/pricing for an airconditioning package. They look like they'd get hot. Hot metal and brick boxes for the kids. Hope assembly isn't long. The eastern regions schools have the airconditioning package.
First was the home insulation scheme which has so spectacularly crashed and burned with the ALP only now noticing the problem.
Now the solar power scheme seems to be falling apart with stories of rorts and scams.
When will the investigation into this amazing waste of money commence, and when will we know the outcome?
Now the solar power scheme seems to be falling apart with stories of rorts and scams.
When will the investigation into this amazing waste of money commence, and when will we know the outcome?
Are you pleased that your hard earned money is going to such well-thought-out projects? Sure, if it were your money in your hands I'm sure you'd be a lot more careful about what you were paying for!
10 comments:
The Australian Goverment Construction dept - we might be slow, but hey, we're rough and expensive.
Interesting to note, it's been 7 months and none of these have been delivered yet.
These dog boxes should take 5 months tops to hand over (yes i'm a builder & i'd be embaressed to put my name on these), what a joke.
"PM Blah Blah & Julia Gargle" is the new catch phrase? :)
Carpe: is the school halls rollout distorting the market as the home insulation scheme rollout reportedly has for the batt supply industry?
Morning Egg
It doesn't distort the market at all, but what has happened is that the builders margin is substantially higher than normal. A normal margin is around 5%, with the schools it's at 11% to 18%.
Add to this the scopes of work were so poor that there were a lot of extras involved and the margins on these are up to 200% on initial build cost.
In the gubbmints mind you just whack a new building in place, unfortunately they forgot about little things like, relocating existing buildings, decking, handrail, ramps, stairs etc etc. Anyone who makes such stupid mistakes is going to get slapped around the head by the builder.
I wonder how much fun you could have enquiring if the new buildings are wheelchair/disabled accessable?
Not much sign of a ramp or wide door in the piccie you posted...
Afternoon FM,
The original scopes (aaahahahahaha) had no provisions for ramps etc. The door is a standard 820mm which doesn't accommodate wheelchairs too well, although if someone develops a 4WD wheelchair it may get through.
I guess that's what happens when you build a stairway to Kevin...
(Sorry)
No, no, Carpe, there aren't going to be any doors, just windows because of the bracing stuff-up.
Egg
Good thing you're sorry about that!
(tee hee)
Replying to thefrollickingmole -
I can't speak for Mexico (Melbourne) but in Queensland, where I work as a consultant advising on access for students with disabilities, all constructions built through the BER funding must meet Australian standards for wheelchair accessibility.
A number of school communities have taken advantage of this by using BER money to provide this access in schools which have previously lacked it.
This fact is of course ignored on right wing blogs. We can't have any credit given to a Labor policy, now, can we, even if it unintentionally helps kids with disabilities?
Hi Anonymous.
Please post with a name, any name, I dislike anonymous postings.
About your comment, these works must be carried out differently in Qld. I've read comments at Kev Gillet's blog by 17 of Toowoomba and he said that a lot of the work done under the Gillard School Hall building money spray in Queensland was able to be used by schools to get what they really needed regarding disabled equipment and access, etc. I'm sure that in southern states all is not well with the school hall fiasco.
There have been buildings built/planned which weren't needed, schools which needed extra classrooms but got new halls, libraries built which don't have books or computers or other things which a school library needs.
What concerns the righties who are complaining is the waste of money of the school halls which weren't planned and executed properly and the government's ignoring of requests from schools to use the money to provide what the schools really needed instead of what the government wanted to spend the money on.
There have been rorts in the provision of these buildings in schools, the prices have risen phenomenally, and there needs to be an investigation into why and who.
I certainly don't begrudge the schools which have really got what they wanted from this program, however, it seems that there has been a lot of waste which was unnecessary and knuckles need to be rapped over it.
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