Page 342 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 February 2010
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2004 with four lanes at a cost of $53 million. But that is not what happened, and we all know that that road still is not duplicated. If you get on that road, and I encourage you to do so in peak hours—
Mrs Dunne: I wouldn’t, not in peak hour.
MR HANSON: It is regularly Mrs Dunne’s excuse for turning up late to meetings, but it is a valid one. It is one that she uses with me on a regular occasion. Actually, it is not regular; I am being cruel. It is certainly not an excuse, because it is a genuine problem that many Canberrans have because they are stuck on a road which should have been duplicated years ago for $53 million. That blew out five years later to an estimated $120 million for two lanes. So, from $53 million, which was meant to be the original price, it blew out to $120 million. If that is adjusted in real terms, it is a frightening figure.
Another example of the government’s mismanagement of capital projects is the ACT prison, quaintly known as the Alexander Maconochie Centre. Let us not forget that it is a prison. I think sometimes that fact is forgotten. I do not say that the Alexander Maconochie Centre is not a good name for it, but we do need to remind ourselves of the function of that facility. What we know—and we went through this in some detail yesterday—is that this is a project that experienced massive over-runs in terms of duration. We know that the scope was significantly reduced. You would be intimately aware of this, Mr Assistant Speaker. The number of beds was reduced from 374 to 300; the transitional accommodation has been reduced from 60 beds to 15; the gymnasium that was in the original scope was not delivered, nor was the chapel; and the plan for an outer perimeter fence was not delivered.
The original cost of the AMC was to be $110 million. Again, the final price—it is still subject to whether we can recover $3.5 million—is in the order of $130 million. So there is another $20 million that has again been ripped out of the pockets of Canberra’s residents. We see the ongoing costs of that project. Mr Stanhope said that the cost of managing the prison would be no more and, in fact, probably less than it was previously, but it is now costing us $504 a day for a prisoner whereas the previous cost was about half that.
We heard yesterday the response from the government, from Mr Corbell, on the failures in the management of that project. What it highlights is this government’s inability to learn from their mistakes. Rather than acknowledge that mistakes were made, rather than acknowledge that they could do better, rather than acknowledge that next time they will learn those lessons and they will deliver capital projects on time and on budget, we saw an extraordinary attack on the committee and the blame game that it was not the government’s fault, it was the contractor’s. I think that in the management of any project there are complexities, but for the government to deny any responsibility, any accountability, any blame for what has occurred is simply disingenuous.
I am glad the Minister for Health has arrived. We know that the car park at the Canberra Hospital is another issue of contention. That has gone from $29 million to $45 million.
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