Page 558 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 17 February 2016
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idea.” This motion simply calls on the government to publish the annual availability payment before signing contracts. I find it interesting that Mr Rattenbury would advocate for FOI reform but may not be able to support this motion today. I do hope he does so.
Mr Rattenbury said that “a healthy democracy requires frank, transparent and accountable practices in all aspects of government”. Are we a healthy democracy if the government signs the most expensive contract in the jurisdiction’s history without first disclosing that value to the voters? Is this the hallmark of a frank and transparent government? Will Mr Rattenbury and those opposite stand by this principle, a principle of their parties, or are they just determined to ram this through?
Recently Mr Rattenbury also said:
The Greens are committed to improving the transparency of government, and I have no doubt it is in the government’s best interest to provide more information to the community.
Will Mr Rattenbury practice what he preaches and support this motion?
In previous debates on this issue the Minister for Capital Metro stated that, for commercial-in-confidence reasons, the estimated availability payment figure could not be released. He cannot hide behind this excuse today. We know that the ACT government has locked in an estimate of the annual availability payment. It was submitted with the tenders. We know this because recent advertising from the government has also implied this fact. The government are happy to go out with spin providing information when it suits them but not when it supposedly does not. We think this is pretty poor form. This is not a sign of a transparent government. Again, we are not asking for the exact dollar figure because I expect that may well change. But we are asking for an approximate figure. We think it is a very reasonable request.
The failure of the ACT government to release the availability payment only goes to weaken their argument that they have a mandate to build light rail. If in February 2016 the government have not released the contract price, how is it that Canberrans could have voted to accept such a contract several years ago? Even an approximate value seemingly cannot be released by this government. Surely, a mandate for this project requires the government to put all the financial implications to the voters?
We call on the government to be transparent, to put the contract details on the table and to let Canberrans decide if they want to go ahead with it. Sadly, I do not believe the government will take this reasonable course of action today. This government, in particular the Chief Minister, seems to believe that signing this contract is more important than the project itself. That is, of course, evidenced by the fact that if the government thought that light rail was such a winner, if the government was so confident about Canberrans’ view on light rail, why aren’t they deliberately holding it off until after the election, so that people can then choose the party that is going to support light rail?
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