Page 1053 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 2013
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MR SMYTH: Yet two years later, they have done the backflip. They have done the Andrew Barr half-pike—the master of backflips over there, who loves to change his policy on the run. We had a dam budgeted at $140 million blow out to $363 million and then $404 million. That is a cost blowout of $264 million, and it was labelled the aquatic GDE. So vying at the top of the list you have some pretty outstanding characters there.
One of my personal favourites is the north Weston pond, which was originally budgeted at $20 million but managed to blow itself out to $43 million, and then we built a pond that is not even half the size of what was originally proposed. This is because the government processes were unsound. They did not take the advice, they did not manage the risk and yet again the public end up paying the bill. This is the problem with this government. This is the problem. The taxpayer always pays. This government do not care.
Of course, there is the emergency services headquarters, originally budgeted at $13 million and it blew out to $75 million—$13 million to $75 million. And it is actually smaller than what was proposed. The building itself is well built. It is an excellent building. But it just happens to be much smaller than what was proposed. It does not have some of the utility that was to be built in, and I think there are real doubts about its capacity and whether we really needed a large facility that had the space to expand in the time of an emergency. I think we are yet to find the real cost of the emergency services headquarters in an event like that.
We have only to talk of the prison. It was not even finished and they opened it. They blew up the opening of the prison as an election stunt, but it is not the size that was promised. 374 beds were promised; it is now 300 beds. It does not have a gym. It does not have a chapel. It does not have, according to the prisoners, some of the lifestyle that they expect in other prisons, because it is a bit boring as well. But the problem is we were told again and again, and Minister Corbell promised, that there was capacity for something like 20 years in the new prison, and it is full. They built a prison that supposedly had capacity for 20 years and at the end of the first year of operation it was full. Again, a government that do not deliver.
If you live in Tuggeranong—indeed, if you live in any part of Canberra—and you enjoy getting down to Tidbinbilla, Tharwa, Cuppacumbalong or Namadgi, you would have travelled over that wonderful Allan truss bridge, the Tharwa bridge, that this government was going to abandon and build a concrete monstrosity. And why was it to be abandoned? Because they could not find the timber to replace it. Well, they did not look very hard. Again, because of the actions of the Canberra Liberals, we have managed to save the Tharwa bridge. It is still in operation. We got a great outcome for a community. It is a shame that they blew the price and the time frame. Yet again, it is this government’s inability to deliver on time and on budget that should have people worried about what will happen in the future.
I think people should be worried because we have Minister Barr and light rail—the rail line to anywhere you want to go, because it does not matter what it will cost. The
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