Page 900 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 24 February 2009
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Ms Gallagher said that they were prudent managers. Yes. Prudent management cut business programs; prudent management cut funding to tourism; prudent management stopped research and development in the territory by cutting those programs. As we have seen in recent budgets, they have had to restore some of the funding to tourism. They have now had to instigate some business programs. They got rid of them all. The preparation they made for a downturn in the cycle was counter-intuitive. They said, “Let’s not prepare. In fact, let’s under-prepare. Let’s remove the things that would buy us a future should we need to.” What they did was squander it.
The government is predicating saving the ACT economy on the Rudd government stimulus package and on the package they will bring down next week. We will get to both of those in a moment. It is based on capital works spending. Madam Deputy Speaker, you only have to go to the Auditor-General’s report that has just been tabled in this place, Road projects: Fairbairn Avenue upgrade and Horse Park Drive. What does the Auditor-General say as she joins the people who have said that this government cannot deliver capital works? Let me read the auditor’s opinion on page 4. It is quite instructive. Page 4 says:
Each project examined (the Fairbairn Avenue Upgrade and the Horse Park Drive (Gundaroo Drive to Federal Highway) Project) delivered a road that met construction specifications. However, the overall management of the projects was not effective to deliver the projects on time and on budget. In particular:
• planning for both projects suffered from poor co-ordination with some key stakeholders, and inadequate resourcing;
• deficiencies in certain aspects of the management of the Horse Park Drive … Project reduced the accountability of the consultant, Roads ACT and Procurement Solutions for the project;
• there was significant delay in resolving project variations; and
• risk management practices could have been more effective during the projects with improved planning and consultation.
And then at the end, to top it off, it says:
Responsible agencies have not evaluated the projects against the original objectives to determine whether intended outcomes have been achieved.
We bought a road, but what did we get for it? “We do not know because we did not check.” That is the sad litany of seven years of capital works projects under the Stanhope-Gallagher government: they are not delivered on time; they are not delivered on budget; they are not delivered full stop. That is the problem.
Even now, we see them covering the Alexander Maconochie Centre debacle. The prison is now open—opened in August—but it is still shut. There are no prisoners in a prison. It is almost Sir Humphrey. It is that wonderful episode from Yes Minister where the best hospital is a hospital with no patients. The government has now
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