Page 1902 - Week 05 - Thursday, 3 May 2012
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have been large blow-outs in the costs of building materials, such as steel, concrete and pipes, all of these contributing to the cost blow-out.
I hope this is the last we will see of cost increases. The people of Canberra will bear these costs. I have noted commentary in the media that Actew is looking at the ways in which it might absorb these costs. Irrespective of how these costs are absorbed, the people who will finally pay for this—whether it is by way of increased water rates or as a result of increased tax because of decreased dividends from Actew—are the people of the ACT. They will foot this bill for a long time into the future.
We have already seen a cost increase of $100 as a result of the water security infrastructure. The chief executive of Actew in September 2009 estimated there would be another $120 on top of that. Our conservative estimates are that there is probably another $20 or $30 on top of that as a result of these blow-outs. So the people of the ACT will be paying on their water rates or elsewhere upwards of $250 a year for the next hundred years to pay for this dam. And those cost blow-outs can be directed solely and completely to the Labor government, who prevaricated for the best part of four years on a decision that everyone knew was patently obvious.
The previous Chief Minister’s approach to this was “if the Liberal Party is suggesting a dam, we have to oppose it at all costs”. He is on the record as saying, “We may never need to build a dam again.” Now it is being built, and it is being built at the wrong time because of those delays. Those delays have caused this cost blow-out. This cost blow-out is sheeted home solely and completely to the mismanagement and the incapacity of the Labor Party to make important decisions for the security of the ACT. The people of the ACT know this and will remember it.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition), by leave: We cannot let this moment pass without commenting on just what a monumental debacle this has been for the people of Canberra. The government would like to write this off as just one of those things that happens from time to time—projects blow out, costs go up. This is not a minor cost. In business, people plan, and when they do their major works sometimes the costs blow out a little bit. But you would be hard-pressed to find any business that would still be in business when their costs blow out by 200 or 300 per cent, as we have seen with this dam project.
It started as a $120 million project. Then it was a $145 million project and a $250 million project. Then we were told the final, absolute, never go above, absolute highest ever was going to be $363 million, and we are already looking at another $40 million above that. We are actually looking at another 10 per cent of the blow-out that was already a couple of hundred per cent, and that is the extraordinary thing about this. We are not talking about just a minor error.
If there had been maybe a 10 per cent blow-out overall in the initial costs, the community might be annoyed, but they might say, “Well, look, sometimes these things happen.” But this has been a blow-out of $285 million. The blow-out itself, the additional costs from the original estimates, are actually more than any other capital project the government has delivered. The blow-out is bigger than anything that has ever been delivered by this ACT government.
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