Page 4220 - Week 13 - Thursday, 27 November 2014
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because it is cabinet who has tasked them with the responsibility of delivering light rail from Gungahlin to the city.
We in the opposition are doing our job. They need us to criticise the government, to hold the government to account, to challenge the government and to suggest alternatives. We will continue to do so. Our issue, our objection, is not with the Capital Metro staff and not with public servants; they are simply doing their job. The issue that we take is with the government and its decision-making process.
In contrast, the opposition, the Canberra Liberals, beyond the 2016 election, if we are successful, will do the opposite to this government. Rather than simply task them with a decision that a few MLAs took following the 2012 election to build Gungahlin to the city, we would actually pose questions. We would say: “What is the need for infrastructure? What is the best mode of delivery for infrastructure? What is the best format of that infrastructure or the best route by way of transport?”
It should not be done just by a handful of MLAs following the 2012 election. It should not have been done after the Chief Minister realised she did not have nine votes in the Assembly and needed to woo Mr Rattenbury into cabinet. That is not the way you make infrastructure decisions. That is not the way you spend $1 billion of taxpayers’ money. That is not wise. In fact it is the opposite: it is foolish.
The opposition wants to take objective advice from public servants. We do not want to ask them to reverse-engineer a business case to suit a partisan decision.
It is interesting that the government said that they had not made a decision on light rail until just a month or two ago, until the business case was presented. It is quite questionable given that the government had the metro staff on five-year contracts; the government had already commissioned videos to be made, at a huge expense, spruiking light rail; and, of course, the government were going all over town, and indeed, I imagine, all over the world, to spruik the benefits of capital metro—all this, supposedly, before it had actually taken the decision to go ahead with it.
We all know that the business case was reverse-engineered to suit a partisan decision, to suit a decision taken by Ms Gallagher and Mr Rattenbury after the 2012 election result. I am absolutely amazed at the lack of objectivity by the MLAs opposite. Is not one of them questioning this project? Is not one of them willing to say, “I think we need a project with a better BCR”?
It is not good enough to spend $1 billion based on feel-good factors. It is not good enough to say: “The patronage is not that important. The economics are not that important. It will transform the city. It will be vibrant. It will be great. It looks great in the artist’s impressions. That is worth $1 billion, isn’t it?” We have to be reasonable about this. We have to be rational about this.
We heard today that the government had supposedly used best practice by way of preparation for the BCR. But the BCR has a discount rate of seven per cent. That may well be the conventional practice for traditionally procured projects for which you are
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