Page 33 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 14 February 2012
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Firstly, you cannot trust them to deliver these projects, because they never deliver them on time or on budget. Secondly, you cannot believe anything they say about their projects, because they have been so dishonest on this one. If they were prepared to deliberately deceive and mislead the community and the Assembly on an issue such as this, then how can they be trusted on any of their other promises? This is a government that has form and a Chief Minister in particular that has form about not telling the truth.
Let us look at that record. Before the 2004 election she said that there would be no school closures. She said there would be no school closures and turned around weeks after the election and started closing schools. Before the 2008 election she claimed that all of the health plans were on the table. All the while she had a secret plan to buy Calvary hospital. She was secretly negotiating the flawed plan to buy Calvary hospital. We know why she wanted to keep that secret. The moment it was brought to light, it started to unravel.
It would have been all fine if they could have kept the negotiations secret. Before the election and after the election they were trying to keep it secret. It was only when it was leaked and it was made public that it started to unravel. Lo and behold, taxpayers were actually saved a lot of money through the work of the opposition in forcing a change of policy on this.
This goes to credibility and honesty. The government says before the 2004 election, the Chief Minister Katy Gallagher says as a minister before the 2004 election, that on a fundamental promise in education they are going to do one thing and she does exactly the opposite. In 2008 in health she says she is doing one thing, that she is putting all the plans on the table. She is, in fact, not. She is doing exactly the opposite.
Now with the biggest project this territory was ever going to undertake, this government made up the figures. It made them up. We could see it at the time. It did not take into account things like depreciation. It did not take into account a number of the opportunity costs. It did not take into account virtually anything. It just took into account savings. There were just savings. There were no costs apparently to this building. They wanted to give themselves lavish offices.
They have walked away from it now. Remember the debates about this in this Assembly. This is not Jon Stanhope’s project. He may have started it but Katy Gallagher was the Treasurer who went into estimates and defended it, put out false and misleading figures, put out this claimed $34 million in savings and stood by it.
We have had votes in this Assembly after Jon Stanhope left where this government and these ministers have reaffirmed their commitment to it. They have reaffirmed that the numbers and the analysis were right. They were not right, Madam Deputy Speaker. If it were the case, why would they now be walking away from it? They cannot have it both ways. They cannot defend and say: “Yes, when we said there were $34 million in savings, that that was true. If we actually go ahead with this building, there will be
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