Page 1059 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 2013
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the twisted message that light rail will go ahead no matter what the cost. It is quite clear that we need to build light rail for the city and we cannot keep postponing, hedging or waiting for some other day. We need to commit to the project so that in 20 to 30 years time we have a comprehensive transport system that can meet the needs of our population in the future.
The other point, of course, is that we already have a very good idea about how light rail would work and its costs. There has been considerable work done on light rail over many years in Canberra, and the various studies have provided ongoing, updated costs of light rail in different corridors of Canberra over a period of time.
We can certainly go to the most recent study on the Gungahlin to city transit corridor, which is from September last year. This estimates the construction of the light rail corridor from Gungahlin to Civic at $614 million. This is a refined and cheaper costing from an earlier projection on the corridor. It outlines the expected design—that is, median strip light rail—and it also breaks down the expected cost, something Mr Coe failed to recall in his recent motion before the Assembly. For example, it spells out $101 million for track work, $13 million for enabling work, $54.6 million for light rail rolling stock, $9.7 million for signalling and on it goes.
So we have a decent scope of projected costs with which we are working. A benefit-to-cost ratio on the Gungahlin corridor was also completed by Deloitte Australia, producing a figure of 2.34 in a situation where employment and population on the corridor increased, and this is the way that any project of this nature would progress.
The Liberal Party in Western Australia recently announced a large light rail project for Perth, and the Liberal Party transport minister has not yet explained how his government will finance its light rail project. And likewise, technical and engineering details need to be finalised. But that is okay, because these projects naturally go through staging. The Western Australian Liberals understand this. The Canberra Liberals conveniently ignore this normal project development so that they can complain and criticise instead of putting forward what their actual policy position is on this project.
I guess it is indeed the case that naysayers classically go hand in hand with the development of big infrastructure. I am not sure many people here know the story of Sir Joseph Bazalgette, designer of the London sewerage system, which came about because of terrible public health outcomes that London was experiencing as a result of using the Thames as an open sewer. Bazalgette faced many obstacles on his journey to completing the project, not least of which was the mixed governance of the area he was working in. There was no London city council at that time. He was experimenting with new building materials and new ideas as he went.
His proposals were expensive, and he was frequently battling with parliament against funding restraints. It is interesting that even the thought of public investment caused outrage by conservatives who described it as an infringement of personal liberty and an offence against public property. And, even back then, there were powerful interests who were lobbying against investment in that lifesaving system of public sanitation.
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