Page 2484 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 13 August 2014
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interest which is being constructed at the moment is, of course, the Majura parkway. Minister Rattenbury, on several occasions, has made mention of the fact that the Canberra Liberals have not scrutinised the decision to go ahead with the Majura parkway. Well, in fact we did scrutinise it and we supported it. We looked at it, we assessed it and we decided that it was worth while for us to support it.
It is interesting, because the cost-benefit ratio for Majura parkway is $4. For every dollar invested, you get a $4 return from Majura parkway. What is it for light rail? An expert commissioned by the opposition—he has done considerable work for the ACT government before and for many other governments and corporations around the world—has said that the cost-benefit analysis is somewhere in the vicinity of 50 cents for every dollar.
It is important to remember that the cost-benefit analysis, as undertaken by the ACT government and as undertaken by Mr Nairn includes social factors. It is all very well for Minister Corbell to go public on 16 July in the Canberra Times and say that the rail benefits are beyond economic. That is what the cost-benefit analysis shows—that there is a social benefit, an environmental benefit and an economic benefit, and all of those factors are built into the economic assessment undertaken by this government and the economic assessment undertaken by an expert commissioned by the opposition. What does that economic assessment show? It shows that this project does not stack up, that this government is being irrational and is doing the wrong thing by the taxpayers, who are footing the bill for this extravagant project.
We all know there are people on the other side of this chamber who have doubts about the light rail project. It is well known to many people in Canberra that there are people opposite who have raised questions about light rail, perhaps even do not support light rail, and it has even been reported that some in cabinet have raised questions such as “how much is too much for light rail?” to which it is reported that the Chief Minister responded with “a billion dollars”. One way or another, the project does not stack up. I hope that somebody over there, somebody in the government, will have the confidence to stand up and say that we are not doing the right thing by the people of Canberra by spending $1 billion on this project.
I have listed in the motion on the notice paper today just some—a sneak preview; a select few—of the organisations and experts that have come out and been critical about the light rail project or about the government’s process for determining light rail. And, of course, the first such organisation to come out was Infrastructure Australia.
The government put a submission to Infrastructure Australia which said, “Bus rapid transit is better by about two to one; light rail transit is not so good but can you still give us money for light rail?” Surprise, surprise, the commonwealth government, led by Julia Gillard, wrote a letter to Mr Corbell and said, “I am afraid you said it best when you said that buses are better, and it is for that reason that we are not even going to give you $15 million to look into light rail further. It does not even warrant further investigation. What you are better off doing is looking into improvements to the bus system.”
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