Page 2835 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
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MR SMYTH: But they cannot tell us. So, Mr Seselja, we are accused of lacking balance, objectivity, evidence, research, accuracy and relevance—but we get none of that from the Treasurer, and we certainly get none of it from the Chief Minister, who cannot make the case.
Mr Seselja: You couldn’t back it up.
MR SMYTH: You cannot back it up.
Mr Seselja: You didn’t bother to do the work.
MR SMYTH: We have actually done the work. The dissenting report states:
Question E10-627 taken on notice also reveals that the difference in annual rent, operating refurbishment, refit, procurement and finance costs of an ACT Government Office and a “business as usual” scenario that included “relocation/upgrading to current Government environmental standards”…
It further states that the cost of these two scenarios would be $47 million annually, while open market leasing of a single office building would cost $49 million annually.
Whilst it is clear from figures presented by the Government that the financial case of the new building is marginal, it is unclear which other benefits would flow to the ACT Government and ACT taxpayers.
The Project appears to have little merit other than the co-location of staff.
When we ask the questions, all we get is vitriol from the Treasurer, instead of getting answers from the Chief Minister. You only have to look at the lack of answers on this project to know that the government have not done the work. If they had done the work, they would be able to table it.
Then, of course, also included in the Department of Land and Property Services is the arboretum. Given that the Treasurer has not done the work—and we will get to this in Treasury, about what really has been done to the budget plan—
Mr Seselja: Do you think Jon Stanhope is a tree killer?
MR SMYTH: A tree killer? He is about to kill $11,238,000 worth of trees. They will be stillborn in this case, because they simply will not be planted. $11,238,000 is being ripped out of the tree planting budget. It is interesting that we are funding a legacy program so that the Chief Minister can go off on his cycling holiday in Spain when he quits the Assembly later in the year. But it is interesting that he does not have an answer to this.
We had the disgraceful exhibition earlier this evening of the Chief Minister purporting to be quoting from certain documents that proved he planted more trees than everybody else. But he only tabled half of them. Apparently, he was provided with a
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