Page 1924 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2011
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all around town, Jon decides to empty some more. There is no bigger or better symbol of being completely out of touch than the decision to spend $430 million on this building at a time when the cost of living is biting more and more households. But if you think there may be better uses for the money, you are obviously a “redneck” or a “philistine”. It could have built real infrastructure we can all use. It could have delivered more services we all need. It could have been used to take some of the pressure of household budgets, but it is not.
This is a government that cannot point to anything it does very well. In every category we are amongst the worst, if not actually the worst, in the country—from building roads to running hospitals, from tax per capita to rates increases. From electricity, to water to rent to stamp duty, we pay more, wait longer and get less. Let me put this bluntly: in education, in hospitals, in community safety, in housing affordability, in cost of living, in infrastructure delivery, in local services and especially in health this government in many ways performs worse than the New South Wales government that just lost their election. Unfortunately, they are not the only examples of failure from this Chief Minister or this government. They are just the latest in a long list. The long list is what you might call ACT Labor’s 10-year hall of shame.
What has been inducted into this hall of shame? What projects or decisions are so stupid, have cost so much money and are so misguided that they really stand out over the last 10 years? The management of the GDE got to be on that list—one of the stars; not the road. Unlike the Greens, we think it should have been built, but it should have been built properly the first time and it should be up to speed right now. Under ACT Labor, it was first announced eight years ago at a cost of about $50 million. It is still being built today and the price is around $200 million and counting, and what we have is one of Canberra’s biggest car parks.
Another of the standouts is the prison—the famous human rights compliant, state-of-the-art prison. First it was 375 beds for $110 million. Then it was 300 beds for $130 million. Then there was the opening. “Which opening?” you say. Good question. Was it the one before the election, when the building was not finished, the security did not work and we had no prisoners? Or was it the one more than a year after the election when the building was not finished, the security did not work and prisoners could just walk out the door?
What else is in the top three? Oh yes, Mr Speaker—building 100-foot tall smoke stacks for a power station 600 yards from people’s backyards. What a good idea—what a pearler! There are others. What about the ESA headquarters? Originally budgeted for $13 million, it blew out to $76 million, and then it was built on a flood plain. So the very time we needed it, when the flood hit this year, the place got flooded and they had to rescue themselves.
In honour of Mr Corbell, I think the bus way deserves an honourable mention, but it only wasted two years and $5 million for no return, so it seems like small feed. After all, look at the other blow-outs. The Canberra Hospital car park cost went from $29 million to $43 million, the Googong pipeline cost increased from $96 million to $156 million and the Cotter Dam enlargement cost increased from $140 million to $363 million. When it comes to wasting money, you have to look at the real pros—
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