Port Stephens MP Kate Washington will demand a cost breakdown in state parliament next week for a demountable building that the government insists represents a "$1 million upgrade" to Tea Gardens Police Station.
The pre-fabricated building arrived on the back of a truck last week and was installed next to the existing heritage police station to the dismay of locals.
The government confirmed that the building represented the full extent the $1 million upgrade that Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced during a whistle-stop visit to the town in June 2018.
"Well-equipped, modern police stations are fundamental to effective policing, and this upgrade will enhance the capability of local police to keep the Tea Gardens community safe," Ms Berejiklian told excited locals who feared their police station was going to be closed.
Many of those same residents who attended the announcement 18 months earlier said they were bitterly disappointed by the end result.
"If this is the extent of the upgrade, the current state government should hold their heads in shame," Gordon Grainger, who contrasted his four-bedroom house, valued at just under $1 million, to the demountable.
"It reeks of pork barrelling following the re-election of Ms Washington and provides the analogy of "taking your cricket bat home in a sulk."
Ms Washington accused the premier of misleading the community.
"This isn't a police station upgrade, it's half a shipping container weirdly clad in timber, plonked next to a heritage building," Ms Washington said.
"If that cost our community a million dollars, someone deserves to go to jail.
"Our local police and the community have been misled by a government more committed to getting headlines before an election than telling the truth.
"They don't deserve this."
A government spokesman said the project would deliver: a "refreshed workspace with upgraded IT, security and amenities in the existing building as well as a new modular unit permanently attached to the existing police station building."
"The use of modular construction methodology minimises interruption to operational policing, with on-site activities completed in a fraction of the time."
"Off-site components for construction, including early works, have commenced. On site activities commenced in January 2020."
"The upgrade works are expected to be completed by mid-2020."
The project is part of the the $118 million police property capital works program.
