Page 2444 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 August 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
The $9 million-odd project time frame, from the decision point of late last year to when the bridge will be finished, is a very long time frame. It quite clearly illustrates the fact that the government did not have enough funding in the bucket to get moving more quickly than they were able to. Certainly, the expert advice is that that bridge could have been built somewhat faster than it is going to be.
The Tharwa community are quite cut off. They are clearly left with an unsafe, inadequate detour of 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the time of the day or night and what type of vehicle is being driven. Indeed, the government has remained far too stubborn on the issue of perhaps taking up the offer of assistance from the commonwealth in the shape of a temporary low-level crossing.
I was very pleased to see the Greens raise this matter. It seems that the only time the minister thought to look seriously into the idea was after the opposition took the initiative of writing to the commonwealth and then advising the government. There is some confusion as to when the government did find out about the advice that the opposition passed to it. The government’s claims that a low-level bridge would cost in excess of a million dollars and take many, many months to build are broadly disputed by local and expert opinion. Certainly, as a consequence, Tharwa remains quite badly cut off.
Going to roads, we have talked here ad nauseam about the Gungahlin Drive extension project. Clearly, in the last couple of years it has sucked up all road upgrade funding. The minister’s denial and rewrite of history that the Gungahlin Drive extension was on time and on budget is rather laughable. The $32 million project, which has now become a minimum of $108 million, even if you allow for the government’s adjustment of $15 million or $20 million in 2002, still indicates a very significant overrun of budget.
There are a number of other areas of concern, including the traffic chokes on the Pialligo-airport complex of roads and the failure to deal with the Tharwa Drive duplication, which has been neglected for years. We finally see a million dollars in the budget to look at the Tharwa Drive duplication. It is really only seed money; it is not sufficient to bring that project to realisation.
Under capital initiatives in the 2007-08 budget, $33.5 million is allocated to capital works on roads, and that is welcome. Well done, government. For the following year, 2008-09, it is $7.5 million, with no more in the outyears. You have to wonder whether we are going to see the same pattern. The $33.5 million, by the way, includes $4 million allocated as contingency for the GDE, and you can bet that the contingency will be spent because so far the GDE has never met any of its adjusted time lines or adjusted budget lines.
We still do not seem to have that comfortable plan in place which gives the public some confidence that there is a strong program of roads and bridge repairs and capital upgrades that are going to be done on time. How do we know that some of these other projects will not be put on the backburner next year because the government again underestimated GDE’s costs next year, if they happen to go into next year?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .