Page 1752 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 June 2022
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has called for, and that is to redo the economic analysis for stage 2A of light rail, do it properly this time, and then share it with all of us. That is what the Auditor-General recommended in his report from September of last year.
We, the Canberra Liberals, have enormous respect for the office of the Auditor-General, but you could be forgiven for believing that the government does not. This is despite the Auditor-General’s scathing attack on the veracity of the economic analysis of stage 2A of light rail, despite his very clear recommendation. For the sake of the exercise, let us go to the recommendation. This is from the Auditor-General’s report:
Major Projects Canberra should review and update the economic analysis associated with Light Rail Stage 2a. In doing so, Major Projects Canberra should:
a) review the assumptions underpinning the economic analysis, including the identified costs and benefits associated with Light Rail Stage 2a, since the publication of the redacted Stage 2a Business Case in September 2019; and
b) make publicly available the revised and updated economic analysis in an updated Stage 2a Business Case.
In the government response, fascinatingly, the government agreed in principle with the first recommendation. They said that they will continue to identify project costs, as procurement and construction works continue. But they are simply not doing what the Auditor-General recommended; they are not going back and doing the economic analysis properly. They are certainly not releasing it to the public. They are not going to tell us about it. The government have a transparency problem and it is very, very real.
We are not the only ones who have noticed it. I mentioned the Greens earlier. Even their junior coalition partners are aware of it. I note the question in question time last week from Greens MLA Ms Clay. Ms Clay, who is part of the government, asked Mr Steel, as transport minister, about the Mecone consultancy report on urban infill capacity. We all know that the only reason that this report has seen the light of day is because there was an FOI request for it. Ms Clay rightly asked the question, “Why was this report not proactively released?” Why would you not have just told everyone? Why did you sit on this? Why is it that this government, particularly when it comes to this project, has to be dragged kicking and screaming into any meaningful disclosure of any information? What are they hiding about light rail? That is the question that people ask when this stuff happens: what is it that they actually do not want us to know?
You could forgive people for believing that the government themselves have pressed pause on this project. Is it a coincidence that, in all of the material from government on this project in 2019-20, there was a clear indication that stage 2A would be operational by 2024, but once we got to 2021 all of the indicative dates had been removed from their predictions? Even when Mr Steel was asked in the chamber, as a follow-up to that question from Ms Clay, as to when stage 2A would be operational, he was not able to answer. He was not able to answer with any definitive date; he just was not able to.
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