Page 2453 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 August 2007
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The general criteria utilised to assess priority rankings was presented in an industry meeting on 13 August 2007.
Everybody is saying to me that they do not understand the criteria because they are so vague. Michael Costello undertook to provide me with a document. He said, “Yes, we have criteria,” but I have not seen anything. Yes, some material has been provided but it does not look like a set of criteria. In its response the government went on to say:
The criteria for the level of exemption to be granted will be determined by ACTEW and made public at ACTEW’s discretion.
So we are back to the 36 faceless men. The government is not even going to make the decision; it is going to wash its hands, just as we see Mr Corbell doing with the ESA: “Oh, the government doesn’t make bad decisions. Independent agencies do.” So the bogeymen in this will be Michael Costello and Actew, because the minister, Andrew Scissorhands, is too weak to stand up and say, “These are my decisions.” How does Actew know what sporting groups need? How does Actew determine what the community needs? Actew will determine it simply on what water it has got. We need to make decisions as a community, led by the government because it is in charge, and it should make sure that we get it right. It is appalling. What was this government elected to do? It was elected to make decisions and to govern. But it gives that responsibility away because it is afraid. We have seen it on ESA, with Mr Corbell trying to say, “The agency did it.” It is not true.
Mr Mulcahy: It is the teflon approach.
MR SMYTH: It is the teflon approach, Mr Mulcahy; you are absolutely right. My concern is that, from the minister who gutted the education system in the ACT with Towards 2020, we are going to get “Towards Oblivion” or “Towards the Dust Bowl”. We are going to see the running down of our sports facilities because the government just does not care.
If we turn to page 99 of budget paper No 3, we see that things actually have to fall down before this government will fix them. There is an initiative on page 99 of budget paper No 3 headed “Canberra Olympic Pool—Replacement of Air Dome”. If you looked at that and saw the $2 million figure, with $200,000 in the outyears, you would think, “Thank God, the government is finally going to do something about the Duby dome.” But you would be fooled because no, it is not. You have to read the fine print:
This project is for the expected replacement of the existing air support structure, which is approaching the end of its useful life ...
There is no spending commitment here. Again, if I am wrong, I am happy for the minister to stand up and say the contracts are being signed now, and that it will happen in this financial year. My bet is that it will not happen in this financial year because of the commitment stated there.
We then have the strange juxtaposition of the next capital works project, which is headed “Canberra Olympic Pool—Future Options Study”. So we are going to fix it and then we are going to have a study; or we are not going to fix it and we are going
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