Page 4241 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 23 October 2019
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You may move into a new suburb like Denman Prospect or Whitlam where there is no school as yet. You know that a local school has been promised, but you are waiting for it to be delivered. You are relying on the government to have a considered, long-term plan to fund and deliver that local school. You are trusting that they have set aside sites for both public and private schools in appropriate numbers 10 years ahead of time and then that they will do the pre-planning work and start construction of the government school so that it opens as soon as there are enough students in the area.
Or you may buy a house because it is close to a bus stop. You depend on that bus stop. Understandably, you will be very upset if the government closes that bus stop or reduces services to it. Our transport system, as Ms Cody’s motion discusses, and Miss C Burch’s amendment echoes, is a vital part of Canberra’s infrastructure. Every day, people make decisions based on it. We have to get it right.
It is not just residents who need well-planned infrastructure. There is a serious impact on businesses when infrastructure planning becomes politicised or is not done well. Businesses need to make investment decisions based on reliable information about future infrastructure. If you are setting up a medical specialist centre, for example, you need to know where the ACT government’s key health precincts will be in the future. If you are a developer deciding where to buy sites for future projects, you want to know where the transport and public realm infrastructure will be delivered, and when.
It is so concerning to see this ALP motion whose aim appears to be politicising the infrastructure planning process.
Mr Hanson: It is not grouse at all.
MS LE COUTEUR: Infrastructure planning is too important to mess up for a quick political stunt. Yes, it is disappointing not to have an infrastructure plan for grouse; I totally get that point.
This sort of politicisation of infrastructure planning has a real cost. If infrastructure planning becomes a political football, projects become subject to radical changes when political circumstances change. It is possible that the ACT may have a change in government in the timespan covered by the new infrastructure plan.
In 2015, an incoming Victorian government spent a huge amount of money to cancel a politicised road project for which construction and financing contracts had been signed during the election caretaker period. The Victorian Auditor-General found:
The … project was terminated in June 2015 with more than $1.1 billion paid, or expected to be paid, by the state for little tangible benefit.
Around 10 years ago, the New South Wales government changed its infrastructure plan with each new premier. This led to one major project, a previous version of the Sydney CBD Metro, being scrapped while it was underway. The New South Wales Auditor-General found:
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