The number of SES positions has increased at a time when the Barnett Government is cutting public sector positons and is capping wage increases at CPI.

The former Labor Government put in place a ratio on the number of senior executives.

Under the renovations, sliding doors are being added to a wall of the bar along with a gazebo in the courtyard of the 110-year-old building.

Mr Wyatt said the work was unnecessary because it was not improving the practical function of Parliament or maintaining or repairing ageing infrastructure.

He said it simply appeared to be aimed at making the bar "a much more pleasant place to drink".

"The Liberal Party... have form on this," Mr Wyatt said.

"I mean, what's next? Are we going to have a cigar bar up here at Parliament House, sitting around drinking brandy?

"This is an abuse of taxpayers' funds.

"The Liberal Party are now out of touch and not representing the aspirations of West Australians.

"This is the Parliament.

"Spending $80,000 making the bar a nicer place to drink is not the way to spend taxpayers' money.

"I don't think any West Australian would think this is a wise use of taxpayers' funds."

Hale House was upgraded for the Premier’s new offices at a cost of $25 million.

The total amount could pay for seven new primary schools.

The number and value of the variations suggests Health did not properly plan the initial contract.

"Two variations to the contract totalling $41.5 million were arguably inconsistent with the purpose and terms of the initial contract and given their size should have been procured under a competitive public tender process to obtain assurance that value for money was obtained."

Both costs should have been discovered well before December 2015 due to the long and rigorous process to commission new hospitals. .

The cost of the name change includes "the replacement of network maps on every train carriage, reprinting time tables and modifying information on bus stops along routes leading to the station." ABC News, 16 December 2015

At a time when the PTA is facing cuts of $80m over three years, affecting frontline train and bus services, spending PTA money to spruik Elizabeth Quay is the epitome of waste.

The estimated cost of the undergrounding works in Karratha (which now includes Roebourne) is $138 million, up from $75 million. This includes a $34.55 million contribution from the City of Karratha, up from the original estimate of $18.7 million.

Horizon spent almost $22 million of its own funds on top of the $230 million budget, which already included $7 million contributed by Horizon.

The original costing for the project was not based on an accurate assessment of the local conditions and complexities. The Office of Energy (now Public Utilities Office) estimated a cost of $17,000 per lot. Current figures suggest an actual cost of over twice that amount at $41,000 per lot.

The bus has cost $50,000 to be decorated in ‘Bigger Picture’ propaganda and will be able to inform no more than a handful of people at a time of the benefits of the chosen projects.

A Freedom of Information Application confirmed the bus was not due to be retired until the middle of 2017, despite the Transport Minister telling Parliament it was an “out of service transport bus”.

For instance, a person granted bail but who is remanded in prison for one week while they arrange to meet their bail conditions will cost the State about $5,390.

The Department of the Attorney General exercises only limited management over the collection of forfeited surety and personal bail and does not know what has or has not been collected.

The Auditor said the investigation identified opportunities to improve the collection of surety and personal bail when bail is breached - estimated at $7.4 million in 2014.

Poor oversight means there is a risk that Housing may have overpaid for services. Self-reporting by Service Providers, a lack of inspections by the Program Manager, and inconsistency in invoice and job order descriptions have created this risk. In 2013-14, invoices for all unplanned maintenance and repairs in the Program totalled $14.7 million.

Housing does not have an up-to-date view of the condition of Program assets which have an estimated value of $765 million. This severely limits its ability to plan effectively for asset maintenance and replacement.

An upgrade to the façade of Dumas House, home of Ministerial Offices, was also promoted under the “Bigger Picture” banner.

The amounts included $36,565 by Gold Corp, $38,910 by the Southern Ports Authority and $29,586 by the Pilbara Ports Authority.   

The Barnett Government has ruled out paying compensation to local Councils leaving ratepayers to pick up the costs.

THE Barnett Government's botched plan to slash the number of councils in Perth has cost ratepayers almost $20 million.

The bill includes consultancy, legal, and publicity expenses, plus the cost of tens of thousands of hours in council staff time.

Most councils are now considering submitting a combined multimillion-dollar compensation claim to the State Government.

The WA Local Government Association has offered to facilitate the joint bid to recoup "reasonable" costs. Sunday Times 15/2/15

In response to a question by Mark McGowan in Parliament on the 17 February 2015, the Premier Colin Barnett stated that there would be no compensation. 

There is no case for any so-called compensation from the state government, and there will be none.  The $15 million in grants that were made available at last year's budget and the $45 million in low-interest loans has been returned to Treasury; it is no longer available.  Hansard 17/2/15

The process of forced amalgamation has now being abandoned by the Barnett Government after failed ballots and the withdrawal of support by WALGA.

The WA Local Government Association yesterday added its voice to those calling for the Government to abandon its reform plans.

 WALGA president Troy Pickard said weekend polls that led to three planned amalgamations collapsing meant the reform process had "unravelled to such an extent" it could no longer support it. "We are calling on the State Government to abandon this process and reverse the Governor's orders," he said. West Australian 10/2/15

The Government has since confirmed that the process has been abandoned. The Governors Orders forcing boundary changes on a raft of councils from 1 July 2015 have been rescinded.  

Assuming that employees would have been given an average of 2 weeks' notice between being advised of the redundancy and leaving employment the additional cost to State would be $3.5 million. 

In his annual report of financial audits, the Auditor General Colin Murphy found that the failure to give employees the 'written prescribed notice' required under the Public Sector Management (Redeployment and Redundancy) regulations 1994 meant that additional payments were made that could have been avoided. 

Employees are eligible to receive 20 weeks written notice of their redundancy.  Where that notice was not given correctly the employees were eligible to receive a max of 20 weeks' pay in lieu of that notice when they ceased employment.   The amount they would receive would be dependent on when the correct notice was given. 

The Auditor General in his findings at page 22 'Other Financial Reporting and Audit Issues' noted the following issue:

Inconsistent methods were used for calculating redundancy payments. The overall cost to the State could have been lower if written notice to employees had been correctly made in a timely manner.

He further noted:

In most instances, the agency's written notice to the employee did not contain the abovementioned required advice and therefore did not represent 'prescribed written notice' under the Regulations. This resulted in employees being eligible for and receiving the full 20 weeks of pay in lieu of notice. Further, many agencies were tardy in providing written notice to employees. Agencies need to address these shortcomings. P26

The payments made in lieu of notice were calculated to be $35 million.  The Auditor General was unable to identify how much of this was affected. 

It was also revealed in the Weekend West that the sale of the land was on the condition that Crown allowed the Government to build its new 60,000-seat sports stadium elsewhere on the peninsula.  Weekend West 8/3/14

The evidence came to light in documents presented to the Supreme Court. 

In a Ministerial media statement announcing the sale of the land and the construction of a new hotel 'Crown Towers' the State Government also indicated that it would not oppose an application for 500 additional gaming machines and 130 gaming tables.  Ministerial Media Statement 1/8/12

The Government currently has 28 units sitting vacant that they are unable to sell.  The other 22 units are currently being used to house Government employees. 

The decision to invest the money was made in June 2012 after the property market had peaked and property prices were declining.    

The failure to sell the properties has resulted in $124,000 in further costs to the State Government including water rates and strata fees.  

As evidence they pointed to the recent sale of land to Chevron. 

Combined, the two lots are just over 6800sqm - the same as a nearby parcel energy giant Chevron paid $64 million for a Perth record $9418/sqm in November. At that rate, the 3438sqm hotel site would have fetched $32.4 million and the 3389sqm apartment site $31.9 million. West Australian 28/3/14

These empty places are in stark contrast to the rest of the state's corrective services system, which is notoriously overcrowded.

The biggest losses were from the Department of Education ($242,900), WA Police ($61,212) and WA Health ($34,581). 

While some of these payments are appropriate they include payments for golf club and gym membership fees

Former High Court Judge Malcolm McHughs' ruling stated that Premier Colin Barnett, in his role as Minister for State Development, failed to give a decision on a proposal for an iron ore project at Balmoral South inside the required time. Under the State Agreements Act the Premier could either accept or request changes to the proposal, but was not empowered to simply ignore it. 

As a result, the arbitrator ruled in favour of Mineralogy and International Resources companies, ordering the State to pay the court costs ($56,631.98) plus damages.

At this stage, a claim is yet to be lodged for damages, but the Australian Financial Review has reported that the figure is "expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars". Australian Financial Review 7/6/14

The Premier Colin Barnett confirmed through questions in Parliament that the State Government has paid the arbitrators costs and expenses but that the damages claim is yet to be made by Mineralogy.  Hansard 12/8/14

Premier Colin Barnett has said one of the advantages of the Burswood site over other candidates is that it is Government-owned land and unconstrained. P10 West Australian. West Australian 10/6/14

However, the Government had to pay Golfwest $4.7m as the private sector operator of the Burswood Park golf course had five years remaining on its lease.

In the first 7 months of 2012, January to August, the Barnett Government had spent just $6,100.

At the time the payment was made Perth Glory owed the State Government $250,000 for unpaid public transport subsidies.  West Australian 24/10/13 This amount has since being written off.

The West subsequently reported that:

Businessman Tony Sage donated $25,000 to the WA Nationals within months of his Perth Glory soccer club negotiating taxpayer funded compensation that was authorised by Sports Minister Terry Waldron, a Nationals MP, without him referring the matter to Cabinet. West Australian 23/10/13

The owners of the Florence Hummerston Kiosk were granted a 10 year lease on the premises, along with three ten year options in 2004 by the City of Perth.

It was later revealed that the cost to reconstruct it would be $3.48 million.

The Barnett Government seems to have lost sight of this basic tenet in its agreement with the managers of nib Stadium when it took control of the venue in 2011. The dismal result is that WA taxpayers are on the hook for an $8 million payment to Allia Venue Management because the company wanted to get out of the contract early. West Australian 7/4/14

Allia was to manage nib stadium until the end of 2023. Allia had no requirement to prove that the ongoing works at Peth Stadium resulted in a loss of revenue. 

The Allia Venue Management was able to claim millions of dollars in compensation for taxpayer-funded redevelopment works at nib Stadium without having to prove the works caused any loss of revenue. West Australian 5/4/14

The existence of the clause was inserted by the Barnett Government in 2012 against the advice of senior public servants.  It was only brought to light due to documents obtained under Freedom of Information. 

Despite repeated questioning in Parliament, the Sports and Recreation Minister Terry Waldron Minister was unable to explain why the clause was in the contract.

While it is not unusual for there to be a clause to compensate the operator if the government chose to end the contract early, the Minister has been unable to explain the logic for compensating the operator given the operator decided to cease their operations. The end result is a business being paid $8m for choosing not to operate.