Page 3847 - Week 11 - Thursday, 24 November 2022
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How on earth did you arrive at that figure?” Let me tell you how we arrived at it: City to the lake construction costs, raising London Circuit, $100 million construction costs, including five new LRVs and conversion of the 14 LRVs in the fleet with batteries, the depot upgrade and the new bridge over Parkes Way. All those things totalled $193 million. All other associated works for roads and utility changes were $50 million. So we are at $343 million for 2A.
For 2B: one major bridge; three medium-sized bridges—Lake Burley Griffin, State Circle, the southern side; Hopetoun Circuit; Yarralumla Creek; and Yamba Drive, which is a floodplain, so it will need to be raised or have a bridge. That adds up to $325 million. There are construction costs at $1.3 billion; extensive changes to roads at $185 million; and 11 or more new light rail vehicles at $66 million. All other associated costs for works, roads and utility changes equal $200 million. That makes a total spend of $2.76 billion. A 30 per cent variance for today versus a future value inflation rate of five per cent is $2.699 billion.
The total cost, when we put them together, is $3.042 billion. We have been a little conservative here because we have not included the early enabling works, which were around $150 million. That has been hidden from the costs; we have just left it out. We have not included the operating costs to get CMET to run the Woden part, so there is potentially another $40 million a year in payments for 20 years, plus increases in inflation. We have not included the costs to do all of the bus side of the work: change the bus network, remove stops and shelters. We also have not included the cost for Major Projects and all of their contractors to plan and deliver the light rail works over the past four years, and now for the next 10 years, and we certainly have not included the Woden bus interchange, which is being absorbed into the CIT development.
In terms of the assumptions that were made regarding the delivery date, I can again talk you through those, because the people of Canberra want to know this stuff. We have got the raising of London Circuit, which, it has been suggested by the minister, will take two years to complete. We are starting around now and we are going to go for two years. We have got stage 2A, then, to take around two years. I think the suggestion is that that could be finished by the back end of 2026 or maybe the early end of 2027. The new bridge for Commonwealth Avenue is starting in 2027-28. Add in the light rail stage 2B construction starting, and taking three to five years to complete, and you end up with around 2034.
That is how we have arrived at those figures. They are the ones that we have put on the table, because the government does not want to put them on the table. I would suggest that, again, as has been suggested to me by people who have worked very high up in government machinery and by people who are involved in construction, ballpark figures and rough estimates of arrival will not impact on these negotiations. I call upon the government to tell Canberrans what it is that they are doing with their money, how much they are spending and when this project will be delivered. Thank you.
Question put:
That the amendment be agreed to.
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