Page 1406 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 13 May 2014
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work, consult with those affected by these capital works projects and complete procurement. Also, additional time was needed to obtain approval for compliance with environmental requirements. Some projects were delayed because of wet weather.
That is a year when there was a 30 per cent underspend—a $273 million, 30.6 per cent underspend—in the territory’s infrastructure investment program.
That is the record. So to stand here and say that we have got this proud record on infrastructure delivery—well, I simply recall a conversation we had with Mr Corbell in one of the various committee hearings. When I asked him could he name one capital works project that had been delivered on time, on budget and on scope during his time as minister, there was this deafening silence in the committee. Several seconds later came the words, “I’ll take that on notice.” He could not think of one, not a single one. Eventually he supplied a list of projects, many of which were projects that actually started when I was the minister. Poor old Mr Corbell is in a real bind when it comes to delivering capital works, because his record is not particularly good.
Even today in the discussion on the approp bill this morning and in question time this afternoon we hear that the Aboriginal healing farm is now how long overdue? Does anybody truly expect it to be delivered in the next couple of years as promised? The secure mental health facility has been on the books now for nine years. What does the matter of public importance say? “The importance to ACT job generation and economic activity of infrastructure investment and transformational projects”.
For nine years: “Let us get the essential infrastructure in place first”. For nine years we have not had a secure mental health facility because this government cannot deliver. Of course, with City Hill, Mr Corbell tabled his concept of the future nine years ago and not a single piece of it has been delivered. For nine years the void has remained at the heart of this city. For nine years this city has suffered from the doughnut effect where it is pulled in every direction as the government gets some new harebrained scheme or it needs to urgently sell a block of land so it can balance its budget. For nine years a concept for the future has languished because this government cannot deliver.
In terms of the blowouts, some of the notables include the north Weston pond. The blowout was enormous and the size of the pond was directly proportional. It got smaller and smaller as the blowout grew bigger and bigger. Then, of course, there was the prison—another Mr Corbell special. He opened a prison, proudly telling us that it had capacity for 20 or 25 years, and here we are about five years later having to expand it because they got it wrong.
The crown for Mr Corbell, of course, was the GDE. “On time, on budget” was the 2001 mantra. Well, it was not on time and it was not on budget. It was five or six years late and it blew out probably four times the original budget. When they finally did the duplication Mr Corbell got up and said, “It is being delivered on time and early.” It was five or six years late, but he managed to get it five or six weeks early on the duplication. There was the Tharwa Bridge debacle and then the Canberra hospital debacle, where the car park in particular blew out in cost and time. There was the
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