Page 2456 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 June 2011
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When we look to issues of competence, we do not have to go back to the monumental, emblematic ones like the GDE. We can look more recently. Where was the leadership of Mr Corbell when his department delivered a shed that was not up to spec? It might seem like a little error because I think the shed is worth about $800,000 and in the scheme of ACT Labor’s blow-outs, of course that is pretty little. That is little compared to the prison, ESA headquarters, Cotter Dam, GDE, but again it is emblematic because it is so straightforward.
This is a matter of a tape measure. That is the issue of competence here. It is a tape measure. It is knowing how much width is needed for a fire truck so that it cannot just get in but also open the doors and have people embark and disembark.
And then it is a matter of a tape measure to work out how wide the shed needs to be. It is about as simple as that. And if the government cannot use a tape measure and cannot even be trusted in the most basic of tasks like building a shed, I suppose it is no wonder that we see things like the Cotter Dam blow-out and the GDE and the blow-out in the ponds, the massive blow-out in north Weston ponds in terms of the amount that will now be spent.
So those are some of the competence issues, and I do not think there is anyone in the ACT community now who would be under any illusion about the fact that ACT Labor cannot deliver infrastructure. They cannot deliver projects. They simply cannot deliver them. They cannot deliver them on time. They cannot deliver them on scope. They cannot deliver them on budget. They tend to be well over budget, often two or three times over their original budget.
I do not think there is anyone who is in any doubt about that. What we then need is leadership. We need leadership to try and make reforms, so you need to reform the way you deliver infrastructure and it has not happened. I think there are other leadership issues certainly that need to be touched on.
One is honesty. To be a good leader, to have a government that leads, we need to have people who are honest, we need to have people who tell the truth. And when you consistently go to elections and do not tell the truth, like the Chief Minister has done, that is a problem because it undermines confidence.
It undermines confidence over time, so when in 2004 people were told by Katy Gallagher that she would not close any schools and in fact they would not close any schools in the next term of government or in her time in politics, they were entitled to take her at her word. But they could not. She did not live up to that promise. She reneged on it.
Likewise before the 2008 election, when Katy Gallagher said that all her health plans were on the table, but she was in secret negotiations for the diabolical decision to purchase Calvary which then later fell over. People are entitled to take her at her word that she was not in some secret negotiations. This was not a minor thing that she may have missed. She was personally involved in a proposed $77 million purchase of Calvary hospital. She would have thrown away $77 million of taxpayers’ money. So
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