Page 40 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 14 February 2006
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Mrs Dunne: Mr Speaker, on a point of order. In accordance with standing order 118 (a), the Chief Minister should concentrate on the actual question, which was about the appropriation or otherwise for the prison and not Bruce Stadium.
MR SPEAKER: Come to the subject matter.
MR STANHOPE: The subject matter is the funding of capital works projects. I think it is relevant for the edification and understanding of members that I give some comparative analysis of how the Liberal Party funded major capital works projects, or did not fund them, as the case may be. Of course, it is interesting that the two major pieces of capital works pursued over the last five or six years, if one takes roads out of the equation, have indeed been the refurbishment of Bruce Stadium and the construction of the Alexander Maconochie Centre prison.
It is instructive to consider or compare the way in which the Liberal Party undertook and funded capital works with the way in which we as a government undertake and fund capital works. It is relevant for the sake of ensuring that the member understands how we fund capital works that I make a comparative analysis. We go back to the $12.7 million project, which I think ended up costing $80 million or $84 million and which along the way involved the illegal procedure of a $10 million overnight loan appearing in the books as of 30 June and then being mysteriously repaid overnight to create some balancing of the books in relation to the transaction. We go back to the rest of the history of the sorry story of Bruce Stadium which, at its heart, is instructive around how the Liberal Party in government behaved and would behave in future if the convention centre project is anything to go by.
Mrs Burke: Mr Speaker, I take a point of order.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Chief Minister, resume your seat.
Mrs Burke: The Chief Minister has been repeatedly told, under standing order 118 (a), to keep to the point of the question. I respectively ask, sir, that you instruct him to answer the question.
MR SPEAKER: I think the Chief Minister is entitled to draw some comparisons in answering these questions. It is an issue about capital works and how funding is appropriated for them.
MR STANHOPE: It is relevant, of course, that at the time the decisions were taken, including the illegal decisions in relation to Bruce Stadium, Mr Stefaniak was, I think, the minister for sport and a member of the cabinet. As minister for sport he was notionally responsible, of course, for the stadium and was a member of the cabinet that took those decisions.
In relation to the Alexander Maconochie Centre, the major capital works project currently under construction, I do not know the exact numbers but around about $50 million sounds about right. That is an awful lot of money, of course. Fifty million dollars has been appropriated, with the rest of the project of up to $128 million
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