Page 3275 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Madam Assistant Speaker, whilst we have not agreed with any of this report’s recommendations, I can assure the Assembly that the government intends to accommodate our public servants in buildings which will maximise productivity and provide safe and professional workplaces for the staff who serve our community, meet our responsibility to the environment and our greenhouse gas reduction targets and, most importantly, deliver the most financially responsible option for the budget and for ACT taxpayers.
MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo), by leave: I will speak briefly on this subject. Mr Barr’s premise was basically that the decision has already been made in the 2011-12 budget to proceed with the government office building. However, I do not think that actually is, formally at any rate, the case, although it may be the case in the government’s mind. The budget actually only included $500,000 for further studies on the government office building and the more significant spending is in the outyears. I do not think, certainly from a public point of view, that the decision has really been made.
Mr Barr: Did you not listen to my speech? You didn’t obviously listen to what I just said.
MS LE COUTEUR: I think I did listen to what you did say. One of the other comments I would make is that there has been a remarkable paucity of public engagement on this. There is more public engagement on the playgrounds of the ACT than on the government office building. The government office building is going to be close to a half a billion dollar project.
I think that there have to be a lot more conversations before we can agree that the final decision has been made. I do note the government’s recent decision to go out to the market to test on this. I think that that is an excellent idea. However, I think there actually needs to be more conversation around what we are trying to achieve with this.
In respect of recommendation 2, it is disappointing to see that the government has refused to look at the best opportunity cost options. They have done no analysis, as the PAC asked for analysis, between the various things that the government could spend their money on. It is half a billion dollars, close enough. We could have a lot of other things with that. We could probably have a third hospital with it. We could have an awful lot of light rail. We could have a lot of social housing. We could have a lot of buses. Whatever way you want to look at it there are a lot of alternatives that the government could spend the money on. We simply have not seen the work to demonstrate that this is the way to go.
We have not seen the work to demonstrate that the criteria that the government is using is all the most correct. With recommendation 3, I guess my personal hobbyhorse is that it is frustrating to see how little commitment the government has around exploring the options to refurbish and retrofit existing buildings. I understand that building a new building is nice if you are an architect. If you are in the construction industry, it is a great thing to do.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video