Page 2769 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
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I think that that is the critical thing. When we see people in western Sydney and other places saying, “Look, no more; no more growth,” I think it is out of frustration with the fact that the growth has not been matched by those state and territory Labor governments with the infrastructure investment that is needed.
Many people have come to equate growth with a worse standard of living. That is unfortunate. It is a result of that lack of infrastructure investment. The real concern, the real missed opportunity here, has been that we do not have a genuine plan. What we have, as Ms Le Couteur so succinctly put it, is the budget with pictures. That is unfortunately what we got.
Let us look at what the Auditor-General has had to say. During this process we have seen the Auditor-General’s report confirming that basic project management practices are not in place. Only half of capital works are delivered on time, with millions rolled over or wasted on long delays or cost overruns. That is not us saying it. It is the Auditor-General saying it. It is the Auditor-General saying that you need to do better. Of course, Jon Stanhope’s response to that was to blame his public servants. He said that this is the report that he actually welcomes. He said that this is the report that he welcomes because he can bash his public servants over the head with it.
What does that say about the leadership that has been shown by this government and this minister when you need an Auditor-General’s report after nine years that again highlights that you are not delivering for the community? The best he can do is turn around and say: “Thank you. I am now going to blame those people who work for me.” He referred to particular projects that had not been delivered.
Why have they not been delivered? What lack of leadership has there been from this minister and from other ministers in not making sure these things happened? Surely, after nine years, you would be in a position where you would actually have shown the leadership, put in place the structural changes so that that infrastructure could be delivered—so that it could be delivered on time and delivered on budget. It is not being delivered and Jon Stanhope’s response is to blame his public servants. (Second speaking period taken.) It appears that no-one else is speaking. I was expecting that the Chief Minister might contribute to this debate. I come back to the point I was making. It is not actually the opposition that are the only ones who are saying it. What we have here is an independent Auditor-General who has said that basic implementation plans are not being put in place.
Things as simple as an implementation plan for each project identifying the skills and expertise required to manage budget-funded projects are not in place. This is really simple, straightforward stuff. When the Auditor-General says that it is not happening in many cases, we have to ask the question: what are we actually getting for this expenditure? We are spending roughly $4 billion a year as a territory. Much of this is spent in areas around capital works and a whole range of other programs.
The Auditor-General has commented on a number of things, but I will focus on infrastructure for now. The Auditor-General has said that really simple things like identifying the task and what skills are needed are not being done. The Chief Minister
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