The cost of cleaning up the six-hectare site at 6 Grand Avenue has now cost taxpayers $115 million.Credit:Brook Mitchell
Labor finance spokesman Daniel Mookhey said the agency had been out maneuvered over the land at every turn. The original clean up bill was $52.7 million.
“Heads must roll. This is by far the worst property deal by any Australian government this century,” he said. “Taxpayers are left with a $116 million clean up bill,while a property developer walks away with millions in mega-profit.”
The $53.5 million purchase in 2016 from property developer Billbergia of the toxic parcel of land was three times what the Valuer General said it was worth at the time. The sale delivered Billbergia a $15 million windfall in a matter of months.
It also resulted in a reversal of earlier government plans to get the existing landowner to pay to clean up the site.
Mr Mookhey also warned taxpayers might have to pay millions of dollars more if neighbours of the site at 6 Grand Avenue in Camellia force the government to clean up their land too.