Page 994 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2012
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(2) calls on the shareholders of ACTEW Corporation to:
(a) table in the Assembly by the close of business on Wednesday, 28 March 2012:
(i) the budget estimate as it stood at 1 March 2012 for the total cost of completion of the project to the point of commissioning into service;
(ii) the estimated actual expenditure on the project up to 1 March 2012;
(iii) the estimated final cost, given the impact of the March 2012 rain event, of the project to the point of commissioning into service; and
(iv) the projected date, given the impact of the March 2012 rain event, of commissioning the project into service; and
(b) provide an update to the Assembly at the commencement of each sitting period until the end of the Seventh Assembly, current as at each sitting period, as to the:
(i) construction progress;
(ii) estimated completion date, to the point of commissioning into service;
(iii) actual cost of construction to the nearest possible date prior to the relevant sitting period; and
(iv) estimated final total cost of completion, to the point of commissioning into service.
This is a motion about providing for the people of the ACT, through the shareholders and through this Assembly, information about the biggest single infrastructure project in the ACT. From the very beginning this project has been fraught. It has been fraught with misleads, omissions, errors, underestimates, cost blow-outs and government indecision. There is no doubt that the net economic benefit to the community is unquestionable. The construction of the dam, however, has been burdened with rain, flood delays, safety concerns and a swag of prohibition notices.
In my view this Assembly and the people of the ACT have never received from this government any kind of definitive statement, any straight answers or, indeed, any honesty in relation to the major water security projects. We have seen situations in which this government and the shareholders of Actew Corporation in particular have gone so far as to try and hide behind corporate and commercial confidentiality.
The shareholders to whom this motion is addressed today hold shares in Actew Corporation in trust for the people of the ACT. But here we are spending well over half a billion dollars on water security assets—by far the largest infrastructure projects ever undertaken since self-government—and this government does not treat the people of the ACT, the people who pay the bills, with any level of respect or trust.
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