Page 116 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 14 February 2012
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living and ultimately come out of their pockets. Somebody must pay for this $5 million that is now wasted. It is the taxpayer. It is not the government. It is not coming out of their pockets. They do not care.
The last 11 years are littered with a litany of capital works project debacles—from Mr Corbell’s handling of the Gungahlin Drive extension, to the false opening of the prison, to the debacle that is the Tharwa bridge, to the emergency services headquarters. Now add the great big government office building, brought to you courtesy of Gallagher and Barr.
It is unfortunate that we get to this stage, but it is worthy of censure that you are so callous in respect of taxpayers’ money that you just say, “We are not going to do it.” Ms Le Couteur said that it is not worthy of censure. The public accounts committee asked you not to do it. The estimates committee said: “Do not do it. Go and do the work. Go and do the strategy. Make sure you get it right. Make sure you get value for money.”
Now what are we doing? We have got the Treasurer, the man with all those great economic credentials that he is so proud of, saying: “We will now go out and market test this, but I will give you a hint. We are willing to pay up to $420 million for it.” That is market testing! They know what you are willing to pay, because you made it quite clear what you were willing to pay. That is disrespectful of the people of the ACT. That is disrespectful of all those people who work hard and pay their taxes—pay more than their fair share of taxes for this government to squander on yet another example in their long litany of wasteful capital works debacles.
There should be respect for the taxpayers and the money that they put into the coffers of the ACT. It is their money. We are simply the custodians of it. We are obliged to spend it wisely and we are obliged to get a good return for the taxpayer. In this case, we have not and it builds on example after example of the Labor Party’s incompetence. We saw an Auditor-General’s report into the delivery of capital works that said they just cannot deliver capital works. This is another example.
That is why they should be censured. They should be brought to account and told that these years of wasteful spending must stop. Ultimately, it delivers a $181 million deficit and next year a $154 million deficit. This is because you cannot get the planning stage right. Is it any wonder that in the construction phase the costs always blow out under this crowd? Whether it be a car park at the hospital, a women’s and children’s hospital, the prison, road works, Tharwa bridge or any of the projects that these ministers have had their fingers in, they screw it up.
But somebody pays and that person who pays is the taxpayer. It is not the rich and the wealthy. It is the ordinary people in the suburbs who pay their taxes. They go to work, they live their lives and they trust their government to do the right thing by them. Every time you have a backflip of this nature, it is a betrayal of the ordinary man and woman in the street who works hard for their cash, but who have such limited amounts of it in a very tough time in a very tough market.
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