Page 1615 - Week 05 - Thursday, 8 May 2008
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At last this budget delivers some money but, on past form, we question how soon Labor will get the job done.
Water storage is another area of Stanhope government neglect. Labor’s one trick response to the drought was to impose water restrictions rather than to enhance Canberra’s water storage. Four years ago, the Canberra Liberals announced their intention to commence work on a new dam. The Labor government consistently opposed the building of any new dam from February 2004 until October 2007. They wasted four years commissioning study after study, as a substitute for action. In fact, on 28 March 2006, Mr Stanhope told the Assembly:
It may be that we do not need to think again about whether or not we will ever need a dam. Perhaps we will in 30 years time, perhaps longer and perhaps never.
Head in the sand! As he continued to dither, gardens and parks across the bush city turned into parched and dusty terrain. Residents have suffered through a roller-coaster ride of up-and-down water restrictions. It took until late 2007 before Labor finally conceded that Canberra needs more water storage capacity. But their boldest plan now is a proposal to enlarge the existing Cotter Dam. And even under that plan the commencement of filling the dam will not be any time sooner than April 2011. This is the government’s legacy on water.
Labor only deals with infrastructure problems at the eleventh hour, after the problem has emerged, after gridlock has emerged. And, when it does deal with an issue, Labor typically surprises everyone with a short-term fix, not a lasting solution. Part of the problem is that Stanhope Labor has a slightly different idea from ordinary Canberrans about what counts as community infrastructure.
Mr Stanhope: We are building the Tennant dam now.
MR SESELJA: It is interesting that the Chief Minister chimes in, given his record on water. This is the man who said we would not need a dam; we may never need a dam. Now he has been embarrassed into action. He has got it wrong again, and the people of Canberra have suffered as a result. Labor’s priority has been personal indulgences such as the bells-and-whistles prison, the pie-in-the sky busway and the ultimate personal indulgence—a legacy to Mr Stanhope in the form of an arboretum in a time of drought. After years of record revenue, we have very little of value to show for it. Sure, we have a statue of a Labor Party icon and we have some expensive artwork on the side of a one-lane road that was delivered years after schedule!
There is nothing in this budget which indicates what structural changes will be made to improve the delivery of capital works. There are no new implementation systems in place to show how a government that has not come even close to delivering more modest targets in the last six budgets can possibly meet the considerably more ambitious targets set out in this budget.
School closures are the great betrayal of this government. This budget delivers surprisingly little for education. And the money to transform some closed schools into community facilities undermines Labor’s claim that school closures would save
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