Page 2738 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 16 September 2014
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MR HANSON: Chief Minister, why is it that you have scrapped your city to the lake vision, Minister Barr’s stadium and government support for the Australia forum prior to finalising costs for Mr Fluffy, or is the bigger and real reason the state of debt and deficit in the budget and the high cost of light rail?
MS GALLAGHER: As Mr Hanson would know, we are one of the few jurisdictions in the country with a AAA credit rating and a strong budget position. The question you ask is wrong. Never in any of the public comments I have made, or anyone else, on this matter has the word “scrapped” been used. In fact the opposite is the case. I have said we will continue with city to the lake but we are looking at the phasing of particular infrastructure and the timing for it. That is it, Mr Hanson; there is nothing else to read into it, and the premise of your question is wrong.
Transport—light rail
MR WALL: My question is to the Minister for Capital Metro and relates to the cost of capital metro. Minister, you said on 16 May last year in relation to the $614 million cost of light rail:
The current cost assessment includes a significant contingency for unknown factors.
However, you said today on radio, explaining your $783 million total cost, “What we’ve done is added to that a contingency that was not explicit in the earlier URS costings.” Minister, how do you reconcile these two statements?
MR CORBELL: I do not need to reconcile them because Mr Wall misrepresents my answer, and so has Mr Coe in his comments on the radio.
Members interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Sit down, Mr Corbell. Firstly, it is unparliamentary to suggest that someone has misrepresented you. Would you like to (a) withdraw and (b) rephrase that?
MR CORBELL: I am happy to withdraw, Madam Speaker. The assertion made by those opposite is wrong. It is wrong because my answer was in relation to the costings then being developed by capital metro. They were not in relation to the 614 figure; they were in relation to the costings being developed by capital metro. So the claim is absolutely accurate and consistent. It is the case that the URS figure, the $614 million figure, had no explicit contingency. In contrast, the figures for capital metro, the capital delivery figures that the government released yesterday, have an explicit and detailed contingency, and we have been up-front and very clear with the Canberra community about that.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Wall.
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