The cost blowouts – up by well over 100 per cent on the initial estimate of $130 million quoted by Morris Iemma during the 2007 election campaign – appear to present an insurmountable obstacle to repeated State Labor pledges to have work commence within the current parliamentary term.

This appeared to have been confirmed on Friday with documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act indicating the likely commencement date for the hospital redevelopment would be in 2015 or 2016 – not before March 2011 as previously promised.

It is considered highly unlikely the current NSW Government will still hold office after the 2011 election with early polling indicating a strong likelihood of a change of government.

Despite this Mr Della Bosca’s office reiterated earlier claims the project remained a priority

yesterday.

A spokesman said it was competing with “other health priorities around the State”.

“The Premier (Nathan Rees) has given his undertaking that the project will commence this term,” Mr Della Bosca’s representative told The Leader.

It is hard to see how the cash-strapped NSW Labor Government can honour such a commitment given the blow-out in costs and its failure to secure Federal Government funding for the work.

Mr Della Bosca’s spokesman said Federal funding had not been forthcoming because the project was still in its early stages.

“The project unfortunately didn’t fit the Commonwealth program’s requirements because planning was not far enough advanced.”

This claim sits oddly with

earlier statements by the Federal Government that it would not be funding projects, such as the Tamworth hospital, which had previously been announced by State governments under its economic stimulus infrastructure spending.

Mr Della Bosca’s office said the massive variations in cost estimates – from $130 million to $333 million to $270 million – were easily explained.