Page 1006 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2012
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by the close of business on Wednesday, 21 March 2012—
so today—
the budget estimate as it stood at 1 March 2012 for the total cost of completion of the project …
I suspect Mr Barr will say it was still $363 million because the decision that was due to be taken on 4 March never got taken. So we might want to have a think about some words that—
Mrs Dunne: Do you want to adjourn and come back after lunch then?
MR RATTENBURY: Maybe we need to adjourn. We might need to have a think about some words that pick up what we are actually trying to get at here. I think you have hit on exactly the right question and I think we need to resolve that matter. Perhaps we need to come back to this later today just to find the right set of words to sort that out. Our intent certainly is to support both Mrs Dunne’s amendment and the original motion. It is important that we keep on top of this. There have been some acts which I think have been beyond control, but I think we also need to make sure we have absolute transparency in what events have led to what changes.
This Assembly was greatly concerned by some of the earlier changes because they were not transparent to us. A lot of people were very surprised to see the costs changing in the way they did. Actew have taken us through those changes at various times. They certainly put out a case as to why those changes from 120 to 145 to 200-something up to 363 were necessary. I think part of it was probably some naivety in talking about costs.
Out of the discussion I was left with a sense that $120 million was the ambitious one at the start to get the idea on the table and no-one ever really believed it was going to cost $120 million, but we were all sold on the idea of the dam by the time we got to the later discussions about the more likely numbers. That is, to some extent, past tense now. We have prosecuted that discussion here before and I do not intend to repeat it. Perhaps, subject to some further work, we would be looking to—
Mrs Dunne: We’ll adjourn for lunch.
MR RATTENBURY: All right. We will be looking to support the amendment and we will have some further discussion during the lunch break.
Debate interrupted in accordance with standing order 74 and the resumption of the debate made an order of the day for a later hour.
Sitting suspended from 12.19 to 2 pm.
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