Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is defending action she took during the Covid-19 pandemic, which lead to the construction of a near quarter-of-a-million dollar quarantine facility.

It follows an independent report finding government’s decision-making process around the Wellcamp quarantine facility was “reasonable”, but perhaps a bad value-for-money choice.

Wellcamp, also known as the Queensland Regional Accommodation Centre (QRAC) was a 1000-bed facility that cost the state government $223.5m — as revealed in budget estimates last year.

But only about 730 people were ever housed there.

Built on private land at Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport, the Palaszczuk government procured the facility as part of their Covid-19 pandemic response.

Friday’s report from the state’s Auditor-General’s office noted the procurement process could have been more transparent.

“It represents a significant transaction of the Queensland Government for which there was a high-level of public interest,” Auditor-General Brendan Worrall wrote.

The 1,000-bed Wellcamp quarantine facility near Toowoomba.

Mr Worrall’s report criticised the lack of information shared with taxpayers, who footed the huge bill.

“Despite the confidentiality provisions in the agreements, the Queensland Government should have considered disclosing the total value of the arrangement once the agreements were signed,” he wrote.

”While information was disclosed during estimates hearings of parliament, it was not disclosed in answering other questions on notice from members of parliament or in response to general inquiries.”

A table in the report shows the Premier was asked about the cost of the project in question on notice on May 10, 2022.

She didn’t provide a response until June 13, in which she said “the government had obligations to keep certain information confidential.”

Mr Worrall added that hotel and home quarantine options were both available at the time the decision to build Wellcamp was made, and that Queensland was progressing towards vaccination rates that would have reduced mandatory quarantine requirements.

“While there was still significant uncertainty on the continuing impact of the pandemic at this time, alternates such as home and hotel quarantine were available,” he wrote.

“This should have been more fully considered at the time of entering the contract in September 2021 to better ensure value for money for taxpayers.”

 

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk threw the former Morrison government under the bus in her response to the Auditor-General’s report into Wellcamp. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Responding to the report, Ms Palaszczuk was highly critical of former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government.

“Everything I did during the pandemic was to keep Queensland safe,” Ms Palaszczuk said in a statement.

“More than 730 people used Wellcamp — that compares with the facility the Morrison Government eventually built at Pinkenba that cost double the price, took twice as long, and housed no-one and yet escapes any scrutiny or public discussion.

“Had the then federal government worked with us instead of against us, we would have built Wellcamp sooner and avoided a lot of heartache and distress for Queensland families.”

The government’s response is that Wellcamp “offered an ideal solution,” with a facility that’s away from populations but also has close airport and hospital access.

Their statement claims they had to “go it alone” after nine months of failed negotiations with a Federal government “which refused to live up to its constitutional responsibility to provide quarantine facilities”.

The site was leased to the government in February 2022, but was empty by August and returned to the owners, Wagner Group, in April 2023 after the lease expired, with the government failing to renew.

The report has made three recommendations to improve transparency around future projects.

Wagner Corporation chairman John Wagner has said the facility will now be used to house agriculture sector workers.