Page 2280 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014
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Mr Doszpot interjecting—
MS BURCH: That is the finding, from a quite significant and thorough investigation. That is not to say that people are not feeling aggrieved, are not feeling hurt. That is not to say that at all, Mr Doszpot. But let us be very clear that the investigations were sound, rigorous, robust, independent and honest. The findings are there for all to see.
I want to congratulate the executive at CIT. They have had a challenging time of late. The executive officer was off for extended leave. He has now returned. They have gone through development of a strat plan. They have gone through refocusing of the structure of schools. And they continue to increase their student numbers and to provide, as I have just said, over six million hours of training to our community. That is something to be very proud of, and I look forward to their continued success in the years to come.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Capital Metro Agency—Schedule 1A, Part 1.6—$23,535,000 (net cost of outputs), $96,000 (capital injection), totalling $23,631,000.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (11.15): This budget confirms the government’s commitment to an unviable light rail project. Their commitment to this goes beyond rationality. The reason is that there are one or two ministers that are so emotionally attached to this project that they are unable to see the truth which is staring them in the face with regard to the facts of this proposal. Unfortunately, the fact that they are so emotionally attached to this project means that the taxpayers of Canberra may end up paying up to $6,000 or $7,000 per household for construction simply to take on a liability of $100 million per year forever to operate the tram for 12 kilometres down Flemington Road and Northbourne Avenue.
The budget provides the Capital Metro Agency with $23.6 million in funding. Elsewhere in the budget, $20 million is given to TAMS to prepare the Gungahlin to the city corridor for light rail, while the Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate, now the Environment and Planning Directorate, will spend over $1 million in this financial year in completing a light rail master plan. That, of course, is part of the problem of this whole show regarding light rail: there is no clarity as to who is in fact responsible for all the expenditure which has taken place. That is one of the recommendations which I will come to later on. You have TAMS, which are, and should be, involved in the delivery of transport services. You have Mr Gentleman, who is apparently responsible for the transport policy. You have Mr Barr, whose tentacles go far and wide into anything with a dollar sign in front of it. And then you have got Mr Corbell, who has the emotional attachment driving this whole project, which is going well beyond rationality, as I have already said.
Overall, the government has now committed at least $66 million to this project—$66 million. So even if this government abandons light rail, which common sense would suggest it should, it may have spent up to $66 million of taxpayers’ money on a
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