They are going to clamp down on infrastructure rip offs
The saga of transport in Tasmania is a long and drawn out one over an extended period. Just the department name changes are a story in themselves.
It was the Transport Commission (TC) for a long time during the 20th Century with the separate Public Works Department (PWD) being the physical workforce.
Then split to form the Department of Main Roads (DMR) and separate Department of Transport, the latter more commonly known by the name Transport Tasmania. This lasted from 1978 – 89.
Then the DMR and TT were re-amalgamated to form the Department of Transport and Works. Also known at various times as Roads & Transport or the Department of Transport (DOT) during it’s ~9 year existence 1989-98. Towards the end of that, hived off and ultimately privatised was the Civil Construction Corporation (CCC), in practice taken over by Downer EDI (ASX: DOW).
Then the transport function was in 1998 absorbed into the then new Department of Infrastructure, Energy & Resources or DIER. DIER was by many viewed as being associated with the state Labor party, having come into existence at the same time the state government changed to Labor and being heavily intertwined with a number of high profile and politically important projects.
Then came a change of government back to Liberal and another change of department. DIER was merged with the Department of Economic Development, Tourism and the Arts (DEDTA, more commonly referred to as simply “Economic Development”) to form the new Department of State Growth (DSG). This was in practice a takeover far more than it was a merger, with DIER senior management finding themselves pushed out and DEDTA being clearly dominant in the new organisation. The abandonment and physical demolition of DIER’s head office building to ground level not long after the takeover symbolised what had occurred.
Now State Growth is to be disbanded and the transport-related functions are to end up in a new entity “Building Tasmania”. As part of this ~25% of the State Growth workforce will be made redundant.
Now the key bit here is State Growth actively purged engineering and other technical competence from the organisation and is today essentially a department filled with administrative, legal and so on people. At this point there’s very little left in terms of engineering, even less in terms of physical works, and it’s all absolutely reliant upon consultants and contractors getting it right. It’s a department that issues contracts for someone to come up with a plan then another contract for someone to implement the plan, it’s not a department that actually does the work itself.
I know someone who still works there and I don’t doubt their competence and abilities but ultimately they’re administrative not technical as is the department. State Growth has a lot in common with someone who wanders into Harvey Norman wanting “a modern TV” or someone who goes to a tyre shop wanting “a new set of tyres” without having knowledge of what they really want, what a good outcome involves, and so on. No prizes for guessing where that leads…..
I could say a lot more but for my own legal safety will leave it at that. 
