Page 459 - Week 02 - Thursday, 3 March 1994
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So the economic analysis takes into account the costs and benefits that accrue to third parties, not just those that apply to the Government, in doing the cost saving analysis. The second disclaimer, and this is critically important, is that few of the social costs and benefits can be reliably quantified. Thirdly, and this is critical - it is something we will all agree with - final judgments on these matters are not up to Access Economics. The report says:
... final judgments on these matters must be political.
That is what we are going to do here. The terms of reference on page 2 state:
In view of the limited time available for the conduct of the analysis, this report focuses on the key issues. It should be read in conjunction with the Standing Committee's report.
So it focuses on key issues because of its limited time. There are many issues associated with this that it does not focus on, but we have to be careful how we read it. It has to be read in conjunction with the standing committee's report, which deals with many of the other issues. Importantly, on page 3 they describe what they did not see as their task, and one of those things was a cost-benefit analysis of the North Canberra area strategy. That is particularly important for people who happen to live in North Canberra. There is no doubt that the impact of this development will be significant for those who live in North Canberra, particularly in Ainslie.
Mr Kaine interjected earlier that that is what a cost-benefit analysis is. The point I am leading to is that yes, there are costs, and the real question, and it comes up again in this report, is to assess who is going to wear those costs. Professor Neutze argues that those costs will be worn particularly by the people of Gungahlin as they wait a greater time for their schools and their community facilities. That will be part of the way the costs are attributed. But the costs will also be attributed to the people of Ainslie, in particular, because it is Ainslie that will effectively become the transport rat-run from North Watson.
I used to ride my bicycle along Ebden Street in Ainslie as I moved from Reid to Dickson College when I was teaching there, and even at that stage Ebden Street was a rat-run. That area is already heavily imposed upon by traffic, and the development of another huge number of dwellings will increase that traffic. So there will be a cost to be paid by the people of Ainslie particularly, but the same cost will apply going back through Lyneham and O'Connor and, to a lesser extent, the inner city suburbs.
The sixth thing I have referred to as a disclaimer is that they say that they were not going to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of a higher versus a lower population in Canberra urban areas as a whole. We would not expect them to do that; but at the same time it is important to understand that there were limitations on what people could do in a given time, and they recognise those limitations. They mention time on page 3, as follows:
In the short time we have had to prepare this report, there has been a number of issues that we have not been able to resolve fully, especially in relation to the cost benefit analysis.
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