Deloraine District Hospital upgrades

John Tucker,Liberal Member for Lyons

The Tasmanian majority Liberal Government is committed to supporting local businesses to create jobs and further stimulating the fastest growing economy in the nation.

Our Buy Local Policy, which includes a Local Benefit Test aimed at growing businesses and jobs by ensuring local firms have every chance of winning Government tenders, is doing what it intended.

So much so, local small to medium businesses are winning Government work in record numbers, with Darcon Constructions one of the latest to benefit from our Buy Local Policy. It won the $252,792 Deloraine District Hospital expansion and upgrade of its day centre kitchen and physiotherapy and pharmacy areas.

These renovations will expand the physiotherapy room’s capacity, allowing more clients to access physiotherapy services.

This new space will improve functionality, patient assessment and treatment and will allow for small group work with clients, which is not currently an option.

The expansion of the pharmacy room will meet the new changes in legislative and infection control guidelines.

The updates to the day centre kitchen, which is used for hospital meals and activity and therapy programs for clients, will see great improvements to the kitchen facilities.

Construction work is due to commence this month, with estimated completion by August 2020.

We set our Buy Local Policy target for 90 per cent of all Government contracts to be awarded to Tasmanian-based businesses by 2022.

We are well and truly on track to meet this target with 81 per cent of Tasmanian businesses winning open government contracts in the December 2019 quarter. Importantly, those contracts comprised $118.9 million out of a total of $130.9 million in contracts awarded, or 91 per cent of the overall amount, which is helping to stimulate the local economy and drive job growth.

This is compared to just 63 per cent under the former Labor-Green Government in 2013-14.

Through supporting our proud local businesses, like Darcon Constructions, the Tasmanian majority Liberal is committed to ensuring more taxpayer money stays in Tasmania, contributing to jobs for Tasmanians, and further fueling our strong economy.

/Public Release. View in full here.