Page 3957 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 15 Sept 2009
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MR COE: Treasurer, like the Actew managing director, are you also putting your name to this cost? If “no”, why not?
MS GALLAGHER: You guys are getting a little too predictable. You support the dam but you do not support the cost of the dam, I think, is what I am picking up. We acknowledge the statement that Mr Sullivan has made and, as a renowned businessman, I think it comes with some confidence that those numbers are correct, the fact that he has been prepared to put his reputation on the line. We acknowledge the comments that he has made.
Mr Hanson: You would agree with them?
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hanson!
MS GALLAGHER: What do you want me to do—come in here and say I am putting my name to it?
Mr Seselja: Are you responsible for anything?
MS GALLAGHER: I do not sit on the board. My job, as a shareholder, is to—
Opposition members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Let us hear the minister’s answer to the question.
MS GALLAGHER: I am finished. They are not interested.
MR SPEAKER: Ms Burch, a supplementary?
MS BURCH: I have a question to the Treasurer. How does the Cotter Dam upgrade compare with other alternatives to ensure the ACT’s future water security?
MS GALLAGHER: I thank Ms Burch for the question. Interestingly, the Tennent option was also independently reviewed in terms of the costs required to build the dam at Tennent. Thankfully, we did not proceed down that path, based on good advice from Actew at the time. I can inform the Assembly that had we determined that Tennent, a place where it never rains, was inappropriate for a dam to be built. The latest figures on Tennent, for that dam—
Mr Smyth: It never rains there?
MS GALLAGHER: Well, it would never fill; it might rain a little bit but it would never fill.
Mr Smyth: But you said “never rains”.
MS GALLAGHER: That is the advice we have got—that it would cost $600 million. So there you go: the Liberal option is to build a dam. In fact, Mrs Dunne was going to be out there in a hard hat and with a shovel the day after the—
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