Page 3132 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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Then, for more than two years, the Chief Minister remained in denial about the need for a new dam. Mr Stanhope’s record is clear. On 7 August 2005, he told the Assembly:
We have seen, through a bit of simple scientific, considered work, we can avoid the need for a dam for at least 20 years, perhaps forever.
On 21 September of that year, he said:
If we could put it off forever—
that is, construction of another dam—
what a fantastic achievement by the ACT government that would be.
Finally, in a media release dated 31 July 2006, he proclaimed:
There is no need for many years, for example, to build a new dam in the ACT.
It was not until October 2007 that reality finally struck and the Chief Minister announced that the Cotter reservoir would be enlarged at a cost of $145 million—already a $25 million increase. Then, on 30 May 2009, the Canberra Times reported Actew Corporation’s managing director as suggesting that the cost would be up to $246 million for the same capacity that $120 million would have bought us in 2005. For more than four years we have seen the Stanhope-Gallagher government dithering about, delaying the inevitable and, in the end, costing the taxpayers dearly.
We started with an estimate of $120 million in 2005. We went through two years of denial and ended with the announcement of an enlarged Cotter Dam; it would go ahead but at a cost of $145 million. After a further two years, the potential cost has suddenly rocketed to $246 million. It sounds like the GDE all over again. In that case we got half the road for twice the cost. I hope that scenario is not replicated in the enlargement of the Cotter Dam.
All of this comes on top of the cost of water restrictions that Canberrans have had to endure over so many years now. But it does not end here. Actew’s CEO told the estimates committee on 18 May that the Murrumbidgee to Googong transfer project, estimated by the ICRC in 2007 to cost $96.5 million, would cost up to 30 per cent more, or up to a whopping $125 million.
The Canberra Liberals went to the 2004 election promising a new dam at Tennent. This dam would have cost somewhere around $150 million, with a capacity of up to 159 gigalitres. The people of Canberra would have had infrastructure with twice the capacity of the enlarged Cotter Dam and not far off the same cost. There has been some criticism of this alternative on the basis of claims that the Tennent catchment is less productive than the catchment in the Cotter area. That may or may not be the case but the fact remains that the Tennent option has been described by a number of Actew reports as one requiring serious consideration.
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