Page 1054 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 2013
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incompetence continues. When we challenged Mr Barr in annual reports, there was this great exchange between the Treasurer and I:
MR SMYTH: You said that there is more work to be done before you go to procurement.
Mr Barr: That is correct.
MR SMYTH: So whatever the numbers turn up it is going ahead?
Mr Barr: Yes, we are committed to the project.
MR SMYTH: Whatever the cost?
Mr Barr: We are committed to the project.
So I then asked: “Whatever the cost? Is there a number at which the project will not go ahead?” Mr Barr said, “No.” That is not how you do capital works. The shame of it is that the building community already know this. There was an article published on 14 November about whether this could be done as a PPP. The government are suddenly now very keen on PPPs. They know they cannot deliver things themselves so “we’ll try and shift the risks to someone else”. The last paragraph on the first page of this article, headed “Engineers sharpen pencils over ACT light rail” says:
If the government elects to fund the project by PPP, it will likely take bidding consortia between six and 12 months to come with the financing. Steele says it is unlikely a PPP would work in the ACTs case, as revenue streams to fund the financing would not be strong enough.
“On light rail in Canberra it is not going to be that significant,” Steele says. “The PPP on the Gold Coast rapid transit was borderline and it’s probably carrying double the patronage a Canberra system could.”
The Gold Coast has double the patronage and it is borderline. But full speed ahead. Damn the torpedoes. “We’ll continue in our incompetence. We’ll continue to wallow in our inability to deliver. We’ll continue to burden the people of the ACT with our incompetence.” (Time expired.)
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Sport and Recreation, Minister for Tourism and Events and Minister for Community Services) (3.58): I thank Mr Smyth for raising this matter this afternoon. I am tempted to begin by continuing his list of fantastic infrastructure projects and commitments. For the benefit of Mr Wall, who may well have been in primary school when the Liberal Party were last in government in this town, need I remind the shadow treasurer of some fantastic examples of Carnell government infrastructure delivery, planning and execution. Of course, the most famous of those was the one described by the coroner as turning an implosion into a public circus that resulted in the death of a Canberra citizen. The Canberra hospital implosion would have to be the top of any list of infrastructure execution.
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