Page 530 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 10 February 2009
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answer to this. President Obama does not, and nor do the Prime Minister of England or the President of France. Nobody has got an answer to it. Jon Stanhope did. He pledged that “Labor’s fully-funded election promises would maintain a forecast budget surplus for each of the years of the next term”.
Ms Gallagher: Didn’t you do the same thing, Brendan? “We will have bigger surpluses.”
MR SMYTH: That is the problem: you cannot trust Labor on their election promises. Of course, the Treasurer likes to interject, and she keeps interjecting.
Ms Gallagher: No, that’s the second time.
MR SMYTH: The Treasurer, of course, before the previous election, promised not to close schools, and we know that lasted for only six weeks before the planning started to destroy the ACT education system.
You cannot trust the Stanhope-Gallagher government on the delivery of capital works. We all know about 2001: “On time, on budget.” Yes, Gungahlin Drive—four lanes; that is two north, two south.
Ms Gallagher: How much did you provide for Gungahlin Drive, Brendan? How much did you provide?
MR SMYTH: Four lanes, on time, on budget. It is two years late, it is half a road and it is already double the original budget, if it had been built, instead of wasting time.
Ms Gallagher: But your budget was so wrong it wasn’t funny.
MR SMYTH: The Treasurer interjects again. It is interesting: they have delivered every one of the projects in that five-year road program, and it was my five-year road program. All the other numbers have panned out, but you got this wrong. You wasted so much time because Mr Corbell tried to take it along the wrong route. This is part of the problem. You cannot trust the Stanhope-Gallagher government on the delivery of capital works.
The prison: it was 374 beds at $110 million. It is now 300 beds at $131 million, we are told. It is not open. It does not have a gym. And what else? It does not work—because you cannot handle capital works. The bus lane to nowhere: $5 million. airport roads: too little, too late. This is the government’s record. If you go to their record on infrastructure, they have not delivered in any year their capital works budget on time, on budget. They have not delivered in seven years a major capital works project on time, on budget. Yet they are asking us to believe that they can deliver $350 million worth of construction in the short term because you can trust them. You can trust them; they are just going to do it!
It was interesting to note the annual reports hearing for the Chief Minister’s Department the other day: don’t go to ACTPLA because the only way to get anything done in this town, according to the Chief Minister, is to go and see David Dawes. Scrap the planning process; we should just give this money to David Dawes and let
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