Page 4217 - Week 11 - Thursday, 17 Sept 2009
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Well, bravo! Seven months later the minister turned around and did a complete backflip and dumped the project. He dumped this excellent piece of technology that had cost the ACT taxpayer $5 million.
Moving along but staying within emergency services, I will consider the headquarters, and this was referred to earlier this week. We certainly had some comments from the Auditor-General about her damning findings into what has gone on with the saga—another Hargreaves debacle. The Fairbairn relocation project, which was already criticised for being inappropriate as a location site for the ESA headquarters, was originally costed at $11.6 million. As of 2009, this has risen to a cost of $75.2 million—an astronomical increase. I just do not understand how you go from $11.6 million to $75.2 million. That is more than a $60 million blow-out in a short period of time. It is unacceptable. The provision of basic services goes down elsewhere as a result. Schools will need to be closed to pay for this government’s incompetence and inability to manage major infrastructure projects.
So what is the outcome of this? We now have a cost blow-out in the ESA headquarters; we have it in three locations; and we have monthly rent due to rise to $250,000 from July next year. The auditor concluded that, importantly, the decision-making process, particularly the selection of the Fairbairn location, suggested a lack of robustness and due diligence which was required to deliver significant government accommodation projects. And she goes on. The only advantage I can see from this project is that it will be done in three locations, which will give Mr Corbell the opportunity to have three ceremonial openings.
Moving on: the Civic busway project. That was a bit before my time in this place, but it was hailed as a silver bullet to our public transport woes, the missing link, the panacea. Let us see what Mr Corbell had to say about this one:
Not only will the Belconnen to Civic busway be one of the ACT’s most significant infrastructure developments, but it will also be a major factor in changing people’s travelling habits, significantly cutting road infrastructure and bus operating costs, reducing noise and air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and improving accessibility for public transport patrons.
Brilliant! Let us turn away from his rhetoric to the reality. In fact, it has cost the ACT taxpayer, the people of the ACT, $3.5 million in design and planning work, and what did we get? I will wait for the explanation from the minister of what was actually delivered. So for $3.5 million we have no busway.
Moving on from the idea of the busway and the transport corridors and the debacle there, let us talk about the GDE, another fine example of this government’s planning and delivery of infrastructure. The only advantage I can see with the delays on the GDE that everyone experiences every morning is that you can sit there and look at Mr Stanhope’s wonderful, wasteful artworks on the side of the road. But let me go on. I quote the CEO of the then Department of Urban Services, who said to a parliamentary committee:
… a two-lane road would provide an extraordinarily good service to people in that part of Canberra for something like 22 hours a day.
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