Page 4127 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 26 November 2014

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(4) release of the business case is an unusual step for governments to take, and shows the Government’s commitment to making this an open and transparent project;

(5) the business case analysis shows that Capital Metro stage 1 will produce nearly one billion dollars in benefits for the ACT’s economy, a return of $1.20 for every $1 spent on the project. This includes:

(a) $222 million in transport time savings;

(b) $140 million in infrastructure efficiency savings;

(d) $240 million in land use benefits;

(e) $13 million in environmental and other benefits; and

(f) $5 million in walking and cycling health benefits;

(6) without Capital Metro, adopting a business as usual approach, in 2031 the car journey from Gungahlin to the city in peak times will be over 50 minutes. Travel time by light rail over the whole Capital Metro route will be around 25 minutes;

(7) the light rail project will create 3,500 jobs in the construction phase alone, which is of particular significance to the ACT in light of the decline in the ACT economy on account of Commonwealth Government cuts; and

(8) the Government is proceeding to the Expressions of Interest stage with release of RFP scheduled for the second quarter of 2015.”.

I will take a moment to dwell on the government’s open and transparent approach to this very important project. We are committed to providing the public with a very high level of information. We greatly value the community’s engagement in and understanding of this project, and the government understands that people want the facts and the figures. They want the information to be used by the government to make the relevant decisions, and we are pleased to be able to provide it. At the end of October this year the government demonstrated this level of openness by releasing the full business case for capital metro. This is the business case that went to the cabinet for its consideration. This is an unusual step for government to take, and I know many will watch with interest the response that has been taken.

Let me give you some context about how unusual it is to release a business case in this manner. The Queensland Liberal government did not release the Gold Coast light rail business case. The New South Wales Liberal government has only released a business case summary for the CBD and south east light rail projects. Of course, we all know that the Napthine Liberal government in Victoria has not yet released the business case for the east west link, although I note this major infrastructure project, worth over $3.5 billion and being funded by the federal Liberal government, is reported to have a benefit-cost ratio of less than one.

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