Page 4223 - Week 11 - Thursday, 17 Sept 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
How did the cost of the road accurately compare with what would have been the expenditure on light rail? It is not as simplistic as the cost of light rail versus the cost of the road. Other factors must be accounted for, including the cost of the extra car parks needed in Civic to house the cars that workers from Gungahlin bring into the city each day, the increase of carbon emissions and lead pollution from car exhausts, the additional loss of vegetation on O’Connor Ridge, and the reduction of recreational use of the ridge and Black Mountain nature reserves.
Another point I would like to make is that a full environmental impact assessment of the final route of the Gungahlin Drive extension was not completed. One of the things that upset me so greatly about that was that there was a lot of propaganda at the time that many of the trees on the ridge were regrowth and were useless as far as habitat was concerned. In fact, after many of them had been felled, ANU scientists went in and actually looked at the date of those trees. Many of those trees were 140 years old; several were 200 to 300 years old. We are talking about significant trees and significant habitat trees. These costs were simply not factored into the analysis of expenditure for the Gungahlin Drive extension.
The Majura Parkway project raises similar concerns for the Greens. We believe that it is important to assess the value of this infrastructure project, not just as the building of a single major road but as part of the future transport network that Canberra should be moving towards. The construction of infrastructure, particularly long-lived and expensive infrastructure such as a road, should be consistent with a sustainable transport system that reduces reliance on car travel and offers the community fast, accessible and cost-effective alternatives.
The Cotter Dam and the expanding cost of the project is another example of a capital works project that has attracted some considerable debate. The very significant increase in the cost of the project has not enabled fully informed community participation. The initial cost of the Cotter Dam expansion, when proposed by Actew as one of the water security options, was $120 million. This then increased to $145 million, then to $245 million and on to $363 million. This is quite a considerable jump. In fact, it is more than three times the original cost. The last increase was a massive $118 million. While the government has indicated that they have been receiving regular updates from Actew about the status of the project, this final figure came as quite a shock.
What this case has illustrated is that the ACT government was making major decisions about a very significant amount of capital expenditure without a realistic assessment of possible costs. The public debate about this project did not occur with the full understanding of the costs incurred, which is deeply concerning as this is infrastructure that the people of the ACT had a significant investment in. After all, they will be paying for it.
The process surrounding the dam project raises many questions. Whose fault is it? Is it Actew’s for not providing accurate enough cost assessments or is it the government’s for not requesting particular aspects of the costings be completed early enough in the debate? Are we as a community comfortable with the processes that
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .