Page 69 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 25 February 2014
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its broader strategic planning objectives to consolidate more urban development along public transport corridors and give people better choices when it comes to transport and their ability to move around the city.
Earlier this year I announced that the global firm EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, have been appointed to develop the final business case for the capital metro agency and to be the project’s economic and commercial adviser. EY have advised on many of Australia’s most complex and difficult urban transformation projects. They bring enormous amounts of experience to the agency. I welcome their appointment. It is a critical appointment in terms of progressing this project to its next stage.
The final business case will build on previous work and incorporate recent developments that have been undertaken by the government, including work on the city plan, the city to the lake project and the light rail integration study, which was commissioned last year. This business case work by EY will focus in practical terms on how we help achieve the government’s vision of a more sustainable, less car dependent city. So it is a critical appointment and I welcome that progress.
Further progress is also being seen in the appointment of the global firm Arup to be the project’s technical adviser. We saw a very strong response to the call for tender for the technical adviser to assist the agency with the technical elements of the project, including engineering, design, construction, operations, urban design, maintenance, network integration, land development and safety management.
I am very pleased to say that Arup lead a very strong consortium, including Hassell and Parsons Brinckerhoff, local firms such as Brown Consulting, LANDdata Surveys, Philip Chun Access, SLR Consulting, GML Heritage and DSB Landscape Architects. It is tremendous to see local Canberra firms getting work on this project along with major national and international firms with the expertise we need to drive this critical and transformational project.
It really does highlight the strength of interest from the market in this project that we are getting very credible engagements from firms such as EY and Arup. Arup, for example, have just completed work with the New South Wales government for their light rail project and they bring a significant and capable team of experts to that work.
The government is continuing with a range of other services and projects to further deliver the next stages of this project. It is worth highlighting that both Arup and Parsons Brinckerhoff propose to use their local offices in assistance with the Capital Metro Agency, and we are continuing with other tenders, including for legal services, which will be assessed in the coming weeks.
These are very important bodies of work. We are building a strong and capable team within government and through consultants to deliver this important project. (Time expired.)
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Gentleman.
MR GENTLEMAN: Minister, are you able to provide more detail about the light rail master plan that you mentioned and its role in the delivery of the project?
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