Canberra, Dec 23 (IANS) Australia’s Department of Parliamentary Services has spent more than AUD$380,000 ($262,437) to replace a coffee cart in Parliament House here with a permanent coffee shop, a media report said on Monday.
The new kiosk, christened the Coffee Hub and located in the press gallery area of Parliament, was established to replace a mobile coffee cart perched in a corridor nearby, The Sydney Morning Herald said in the report.
Its design, from local Canberra firm Guida Moseley Brown Architects, cost AUD$38,900 and national construction firm Built won the contract for its fit out, which cost AUD$343,945.
The Hub caters to journalists, political staffers and other Parliament employees too who were otherwise unable to make it to the building’s other cafes — the Staff Dining Room, colloquially known as the “trough”; the publicly facing Queen’s Terrace Cafe; and Aussies, a privately run cafe.
Included in the Hub’s offering are sandwiches for AUD$6, small coffees for AUD$3.60 and large ones for AUD$4.10.
The Hub offers a 20 cent discount on hot drinks to customers who bring their own cups – as did the cart – and the Department noted “over 114,000 hot beverages have been sold in own cups” since 2017.
Regarding the amount of money required for the revamped cafe, opposition Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching said: “They will need to sell about one hundred thousand cups of coffee before the taxpayer will start to get their money back.”
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