Page 341 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 February 2010
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What did the Auditor-General say? I will quote some of the highlights from the Auditor-General. She said the Fairbairn site was not robust and was not supported by detailed analysis. There were significant concerns raised about the suitability of the Fairbairn location, and so on. I encourage you to read that report, because it does highlight the mistakes that were made, mistakes that this government seems incapable of learning from.
Moving to another issue—the Belconnen busway project. Funnily enough, guess who it is. There is no prize; it is too simple a question. Even Mr Barr would be able to answer this. It was Simon, Mr Barr, in case you were wondering. Simon says, “I will deliver it on time and on budget.” Well, we know that it will not be true if Simon says it. What did he say? Let me quote him:
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.
My goodness, was that not a bold statement that he made amongst the many other bold statements? The project was set to cost the taxpayer $3.5 million in associated works. What have we got for the $3.5 million? It appears we having nothing. Added to the blow-out of the Cotter Dam, added to the additional cost in ESA headquarters, added to the waste of money on FireLink, there is another $3.5 million that has, in effect, been ripped out of the pockets of the taxpayers of the ACT, who are paying more for their basic household services than they need to simply because this government cannot manage major infrastructure projects.
One that got prominence during the ACT election campaign is the Gungahlin Drive extension. I do not think anyone can forget the memorable rush announcement from the Chief Minister on the eve of the City News coming out. There was the front page policy announcement by the Canberra Liberals that we would, indeed, duplicate that road and then the hurried press conference from Mr Stanhope: “We’ll do that. We got in there first.” It was an appalling act. It was probably not quite as bad as the fake opening of the AMC, but it certainly was a low moment in the ACT election campaign.
Labor has known for years that the traffic was going to be struggling to meet capacity on a single-lane road and that we needed a two-lane road in that location. Indeed, government studies in 2002 said:
GDE will busy upon opening, and that widening to four lanes will need to be considered relatively soon after the opening of the original construction.
The CEO of the then Department of Urban Services in 2004 said that a two-lane road would provide an extraordinary service to people in that part of Canberra for something like 22 hours a day. Mr Stanhope promised in 2001 to build the road by
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