The federal government will spend $200,000 a year to maintain the grounds of the prime minister’s official Sydney residence, Kirribilli House, new documents show.
Tender documents show that the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet signed off on a three-year deal worth $600,000 with contractor VIP Home Services in March for the maintenance of the grounds of the plush taxpayer-funded property, which is the preferred residence of the prime minister, Tony Abbott.
VIP Home Services will be required to mow the lawns, tidy shrubs and hedges, clear gutters, clean pavements and help set up for outdoor functions.
A spokeswoman for the department said the “garden and grounds have significant heritage values” and that the “Commonwealth is obliged under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act 1999 to ensure that its heritage values are preserved for future generations”.
Labor said it was a waste of taxpayers’ money.
“It’s not just the fertiliser that stinks at the prime minister’s house,” Labor’s spokesman for waste Pat Conroy said. “Tony Abbott has doubled the price of the gardening contract for his Sydney residence, and this is in addition to the luxury renovations inside Kirribilli House.”
“How can Tony Abbott justify this? The prime minister talks about lifters and leaners, and he has presided over some of the cruellest budget cuts in memory. Yet when it comes to his own expenses he has no problem spending big. What a hypocrite,” Conroy said.
It was revealed last month that Abbott would pay back $250 a week to have his youngest daughter Bridget live with the family in Kirribilli House. As Bridget Abbott no longer studies, she is not classed as a dependant.
Abbott had spent $120,000 in the first six months after taking office on renovations for Kirribilli House, including nearly $13,000 on a rug for the family room.
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet spent just shy of $361,000 in the 2010-11 financial year on the grounds’ maintenance of Kirribilli House and the Lodge in Canberra, both official prime ministerial residences.
That was an increase from the 2009-10 financial year, when the expenditure was just over $316,000 for both residences.
About $6.4m in public money has been spent on upgrading The Lodge, representing a doubling of the original allotted sum. The timeframe of the upgrade has also been extended, with the work, which began in September 2013, not yet complete.
