Page 1004 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2012
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amendment to Mr Barr’s amendment puts back in all those things that he sought to take out.
We need to know not only how much they have spent so far, which we now have—$315.7 million—but how much they expected to spend before the rain event. Then at regular intervals we want the government to report to us, and through us to the people of the ACT, on progress both in cost and in timing.
It may be the case that it will be difficult in the first instance to come back in the May sittings and say, “We have now estimated the completion date to be such and such,” because it may be too early to do that. But it is reasonable for the shareholders to tell us, “We cannot make that calculation yet.” That is a report. If they cannot make that calculation yet they should report that to us.
If there is any discussion about how much the project might increase by, they should say: “We think it is going to increase by this much. These are the issues that we need to take into account. These are the costs of the rain event. Some of it will be covered by insurance. This is how much we estimate will be covered by insurance.”
These are things that the people of the ACT deserve to know and this is what my amendment to Mr Barr’s amendment does. It puts back in the reporting. Mr Barr and his colleague Ms Gallagher need to report to the people of the ACT on this most vital issue. I commend my amendment and I hope to receive support for the amendment.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (12.11): The enlarged Cotter Dam project has certainly been the subject of a great deal of discussion both here in the chamber and particularly in committees. It has been a point of some concern for many members in the place, particularly as we have seen the costs escalating threefold. It has certainly been a significant concern for us. That is why we supported the inquiry by the ICRC last year. I know Mrs Dunne made some remarks about that. I do not want to re-prosecute that argument too much. I simply say that the reason we supported the ICRC doing it was we felt that that was a body that had the expertise to actually work through the detailed figures. I said that at the time and I stand by that view.
Since that time, we have seen in recent months a number of stories emerge about sources of delay for the project: there were the unexpected geological conditions at the base of the dam before the concrete started to pour and we had some general rain over the last six or 12 months which provided some slowing down. I think Mrs Dunne was fair to make the point—and certainly I had formed the view as well—that it did feel like over the last six to eight weeks before the significant rainfall event in early March there was a softening up going on. There were a number of media stories coming forward which I saw. I think I even remarked out loud in my office that I thought we were on for some revision of the budget, that the $363 million which we were assured at the time was a rolled gold guarantee—and various other phrases—was under pressure.
We then had the very significant rain event in early March. It has been clear for everybody to see that that has obviously had a significant detrimental impact on the progress of the dam. It has clearly created a new set of costs with the damage to
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