Page 107 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 February 2016
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It is a risk for this government to sign contracts. It is a risk financially—not for Mr Corbell or for Mr Rattenbury, but for the 150,000 ratepayers of the ACT. It is sad to see the ACT government willingly risking taxpayers’ money for their own political imperative.
Ultimately the outcome that Canberrans deserve, regardless of whether light rail is built or not, is that we act prudently. We should all agree on that statement. This means that the government should not sign contracts before the next election. In a 48-month term, I believe it is absolutely unreasonable to sign contracts for a 20 or 25-year deal in month 44 of a 48-month term. This government has had 48 months to sign a contract. Even if they do claim they had a mandate, they have had 48 months to do this, and they are waiting to month 44 before they actually go ahead and do this. In effect, we will be more than 90 per cent of the way through the term before they try to bind Canberrans to the deal done in November 2012.
The issue of a mandate will be brought up by those opposite, I am sure. Through their smoke and mirrors, they will try to say that their $30 million commitment in 2012 is a mandate to lock Canberrans into a 25-year, near $2 billion contract. Well, we simply do not accept that. Indeed, it is a view shared by some in the community. In a post made just two days before the last ACT election, Damien Haas, the chair of ACT Light Rail, declared:
The ALP now have a policy that proposes that if they are reelected this year: They will begin an examination of constructing a light rail line with public private partnership options … If elected again in 2016, would actually begin construction of the Gungahlin to Civic light rail link with an aim for completion by 2018. They will commit 30 million dollars over the next two years for further work on these proposals.
Furthermore, the ACT Greens commented on ACT Labor’s 2012 election commitment that, “The Labor Party has only committed the money for further feasibility work.” That is what the Greens said. That is what the Greens said before the election. They said that the Labor Party has only committed the money for further feasibility work. That is the truth. If you look at Treasury document No 87, the document submitted to the Treasury for costing, it is a $30 million commitment. Incidentally, they got the costing wrong, because it ended up costing somewhat more than that because they did not treat their capital and recurrent correctly, but it was a $30 million commitment.
This mandate issue is contentious. The sheer fact that the ABC did a story the other night suggests that it is contentious. The fact that it is contentious suggests that there is no mandate. You can hardly say that they have a mandate if it is contentious. A mandate is not contentious. A mandate is fact and they do not have a mandate, because at best it is contentious; at worst they definitely do not.
There are concerns, considerable concerns in the community, that the government does not have a mandate. The best way to rectify this is to let Canberrans decide. What is the long-term impact if they wait until October rather than June? What is the long-term impact of doing that? If they are so confident in their position, why do they
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