Page 1358 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 13 May 2014
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But the question is: why would you not be more open in the financials? The excuse is always thrown up, “Well, of course, it’s commercial-in-confidence.” If there is commercial-in-confidence information that might need protection so that we get the best price we can, noting already that the Treasurer has said that no price is too high, I think on that excuse alone the horse has already bolted.
This is a huge undertaking for the territory. Members would remember the mismanagement of Gungahlin Drive by Mr Corbell, which saw the project, with an initial budget of something like $55 million and a completion date of July 2005, take double the time and probably cost four times the money. That is why it is of concern to the committee—and it is particularly of concern to this side of the house—that we are really not getting the financial information that makes the case.
Particularly on capital metro, we know that that if you look at the Gold Coast example, the numbers were dramatically overstated by the government of the day. An incoming Liberal government that reassessed the numbers found that the expectation of passenger usage was about a third of what was used to make the case to go ahead with what was at best a marginal project when they had triple the passenger projections. The long-term cost of this project will be borne by someone. That someone is the taxpayer.
Remember that the Chief Minister, when she came to office, heralded a new era of openness and accountability. To just simply have a blanket, “No, we won’t be releasing these numbers” is unfortunate. I think it lays the government open to the claim that they are hiding information about the true viability of capital metro. We know, for instance, that Mr Barr has refused to rule out a levy, a tax hike, to pay for the capital metro, which everyone would have assumed, given the government’s insistence, was economically viable. But, again, the fact that you are now going to immediately start reaching into taxpayers’ pockets to pay for this piece of folly at this time is a shame. We have stated our position. Yes, do the work by all means, reserve the routes by all means. but you need to make the case before this goes ahead. Again, I think what is happening here is that we are not getting the case.
In terms of recommendation 13, it is a shame that the government will not make available that information and will not make sure that their case is made and well made. We know that in the approp bill there is some capital injection funding to recurrent projects for the capital metro. It is a transfer from one fund to the other. If you cannot get your allocation of funds at the start, whether it is capital or recurrent—which, of course, is just adherence with the accounting standard—then there are serious concerns about the way that the government are handling the capital metro project.
I think all in this place will need to keep a very firm eye on this project simply because the case has not been made that it is viable at this time. There is not the financial information and we can look at their history of projects, whether it be the prison—where, of course, we had the false opening by Mr Corbell—or Gungahlin Drive, which Mr Corbell promised several times would be delivered on time and on budget. Indeed, Mr Corbell was reportedly at the Gungahlin Community Council
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