Page 321 - Week 01 - Thursday, 16 February 2012
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piece of paper, a single-sided A4 piece of paper, that detailed the proposed savings. That is just disgraceful. That is such poor process.
In terms of strategy, there are two sorts of strategy here. There is the whole-of-government strategy to deliver the project, but with the government office accommodation strategy the strategy itself was to avoid the strategy. That is really poor strategy.
That is why this is so important and that is why this motion should get up today.
And there is the detail. I think the government took a decision that if they pumped in enough reports, had enough people appear at a committee table and talked long and hard about it, they would get to a conclusion. The message they were trying to sell was that we needed a big office block because public servants are living in substandard accommodation and it should all be in Civic. There was no detail about how that would truly affect Dickson, in particular. Dickson relies on a lot of business from Macarthur House, Dame Pattie Menzies House, TransACT House and the motor registry. There was no detail about how that would be ameliorated. There was no detail on how the impact on Northbourne Avenue and parking issues in Civic would be addressed.
For detail, he was very poor. That is why this motion is important—because we have not seen the documents that PAC has asked for several times and that the estimates committee said should be made public. That is why it is important that this motion should get up today.
I think it behoves the members of the committee, if they are accepting of that logic, to do this. Perhaps the chair can reasonably stand up and state her position now, and Mr Hargreaves can do so. We will give them both leave to stand and state their position that yes, they accept that (a) to (f) are important and that (a) to (f) should be investigated and will be investigated.
I know as well as both of you do that the PAC agenda is rather full. The Auditor-General keeps pumping out reports and issues keep coming up that we look at—everything from ambulances services to ACTION bus services and the delivery of land supply. The litany of the failures of this government in some of those reports is long; I would not be very proud of the analysis at all.
But this is very important. This was a hallmark event for the government. This is what they wanted. And now they have largely walked away from it without any strategy in place to address, for instance, where public servants will be accommodated until the now-delayed process recommences, there is a decision and the process has completion. That is important as well.
It is abject failure across whatever criteria you want to put. Paragraphs (a) to (f) are very specific and should be discussed. I look forward to the commitment to that by my colleagues. It would be nice if that commitment was made here now publicly so that we could just move on with the inquiry in due course.
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