Page 3905 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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repair and that there were no options available at all to do something about the old bridge. The government’s press release states:
… after recent advice that it may be possible to rebuild the bridge while it is open to traffic.
Chief Minister and Minister for Heritage Jon Stanhope said that as part of the consultation the Government would gauge the value the community placed on the rebuilding of the bridge …
There is this quotation in the press release:
“When the decision was taken by the Government a year ago to construct a new bridge over the river at Tharwa, the view of roads experts was that the old bridge was economically beyond repair,” …
I stress that: “economically beyond repair”. Suddenly, there is, according to the press release, “a growing body of opinion that the bridge can be rebuilt”. What the hell went wrong in the last 18 months? This is a hell of a contrast to the decision taken some time ago that the old bridge was beyond economic repair and that the government had to proceed with an expensive $10 million concrete bridge—which would not, by the way, be serviceable until late 2008.
This is an absolute farce. The government, in the last sitting, denied they had seen compelling engineering evidence or even a New South Wales RTA report, for example, which had given some pretty solid advice on the economic viability of building a new bridge. So we have here today the backflip of all backflips.
I have seen correspondence in which government agencies have talked about the strong possibility of the need to demolish the old bridge. So we have gone from a situation where the old Tharwa bridge was beyond economic repair, and serious consideration was given—and this is documented—to the old bridge being demolished, to suddenly a body of opinion indicating that perhaps after all the bridge can be rebuilt. This is comical farce. It is worse than that, Mr Speaker; this is almost moral corruption. How the hell were ministerial decisions taken to arrive at this point? In the press release the government goes on to say:
… representations that have been made in recent weeks regarding the possible rebuilding of the old bridge are sufficiently compelling …
What is interesting is that Mr Hargreaves, the minister who so rigidly stuck for the last 18 months to this compelling plan to build a new bridge, has now been scuppered by the Chief Minister. I welcome the fact that the Chief Minister has scuppered Mr Hargreaves, after a series of very poor ministerial decisions by him about the issue of the Tharwa Murrumbidgee River crossing. He has clearly had a second look at the whole saga after a hell of a lot of pressure from the Tharwa community and a lot of pressure from the opposition, inquiring into the government’s workings and decisions around this matter. There has been ministerial failure. A community has been put at risk and has been totally beleaguered. All of this needs to be inquired into.
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