Page 1801 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2011
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MR SPEAKER: Chief Minister, I have asked you to come to the question specifically. It has got nothing to do with the Liberal Party. Ms Hunter asked you a clear question.
Mr Hargreaves: The Liberal Party are irrelevant.
MR SPEAKER: The question has nothing to do with the Liberal Party.
MR STANHOPE: I think it is relevant but—
Members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR STANHOPE: The government has done a detailed economic analysis that underpins the business case. Indeed I can tell you, as I have, that the advice that the government received in relation to this was that direct economic benefit or saving to the government, the community, is over $19 million, with indirect costs more difficult to quantify but somewhere in the order of $15 million. We are talking potentially of in excess of $30 million of economic benefit every year if we co-locate our public servants in this building.
We are talking about co-locating public servants that are currently housed in 19 separate buildings across the territory—currently located in 19 separate buildings, and our proposal is to bring them together in a single, central building appropriate to their circumstance and appropriate to our needs. It is a great proposal, it is a good proposal and it is something that we will proudly deliver.
In relation to the available information around economic analysis, I have already asked the department, in anticipation of the question today, to gather together the material that actually reflects the economic analysis, the business case and the savings, and we will release it.
MR SMYTH: A supplementary, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Smyth.
MR SMYTH: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Chief Minister, has the government done any analysis of the impact on the property market vacancy rate if the government goes ahead with this proposal?
MR STANHOPE: Of course we are mindful of and sensitive to the implications and we have given consideration to those issues. But at the end of the day we have taken decisions in relation to what we believe is in the best interests of the government and our public service, and what is in the public interest. We will make our decision on the basis of what we believe to be in the public interest and what we believe to be in the best interests of the ACT. We start from the position where our advice on our economic analysis is that we will save in the order, directly, of $20 million a year and
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