Page 80 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 12 February 2008
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bridge—only the second meeting, and 18 months after the first one—where leading Tharwa residents insist Mr Hargreaves stated, one, that the old bridge was “about to fall into the river”; two, that the bridge was “beyond economic repair”; and, three, that the only option left to the community was Mr Hargreaves’s planned new concrete bridge. There was no consultation at this meeting and simply a predetermined outcome based on a flawed decision-making process.
Mr Speaker, Tharwa residents are adamant that, faced with Mr Hargreaves’s strident position at the second so-called consultation that was undertaken, and sick and tired of months of government inaction and confusion and desperate to have their river crossing reopened, they reluctantly agreed to Mr Hargreaves’s decision to build a new $10 million concrete bridge. Mr Speaker, that reluctant agreement split the Tharwa community. In fact, the predetermined, firm position of Minister Hargreaves to replace the old bridge with a concrete bridge dates back to May 2005. At the first of two so-called consultation meetings, his position was reported in an email to the ACT Heritage Council written by a New South Wales engineer present at that meeting, who said:
The minister insisted on the meeting being to discuss options with the community, but was clearly pushing for a temporary low level crossing or short term repairs for light traffic on the bridge, and permanent replacement with a concrete bridge.
So, Mr Speaker, here was the minister pushing for temporary measures pending the preparation of his much desired, predetermined concrete bridge. This surely puts a lie to Mr Stanhope’s claims that the Tharwa community had pressed for the concrete bridge. The time frame of two years and eight months from May 2005 to Mr Stanhope’s January 2008 back flip clearly illustrates the incredible amount of mucking around and indecision on the part of the government over this issue.
Further examination of documents and correspondence obtained through freedom of information access indicates that Mr Hargreaves’s decision—his only-option-left decision—was disagreed with even by members of his own department and some of his own advisers, who were confident that the old bridge could be restored to at least light traffic standard. We know the longstanding advice from Mr Brian Pearson, an ex-New South Wales DMR engineer intimately familiar with the Tharwa bridge, which led ultimately, of course, to the engineering report from Wagga RTA in September 2007, which finally forced the Chief Minister to perform a back flip on this particular project and push Mr Hargreaves to one side.
Further, Mr Speaker, how much of the $10 million appropriated for a new bridge at Tharwa has been expended in the meantime? What was the purpose of preparatory work for a new bridge, and how much did that cost? Has some unsuspecting contractor, the successful tenderer for completion of a new bridge—if the tender was finalised, and we still do not quite know where that process got to—or potential tenderers lost money because the Stanhope government could not get its act together?
What a marvellous decision-making process the Tharwa bridge saga has turned out to be—determination to build a concrete monument bridge to John Hargreaves,
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