Page 2289 - Week 06 - Friday, 27 June 2008
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business proponents who want to come to this city will have to go through. It is the doubt that these factors have created that seriously jeopardises projects like this and projects in the future.
You can see the type of process that was followed. Initially, this project could not go ahead without the peaking station. “This peaking station will go ahead.” We all heard the rhetoric from the Chief Minister. There was no doubt in his mind that this was appropriate. Yet, before the backflip announcement was made, it had been discovered that it was not economically viable on that site, and that it was not even needed on that site. We have another quick-fix process underway, where we suddenly find a block of land in the very south of the ACT that is suitable for a station 2½ times as big. In the time from when we withdrew the peaking station until a couple of days ago—fortuitously, before the Chief Minister’s no-confidence motion began—lo and behold, we have got a different solution.
People are incredibly cynical about that. They feel that their fears were confirmed, and that putting the peaking station there at 210 megawatts was the thin edge of the wedge. They are even more determined to fight because they do not trust this government, and it is all through the actions of the Chief Minister. It has left you exposed, Mr Barr, because people are now watching you and they are watching this process. They are saying to us that they want an EIS on that site and they do not want you to call this in. They want a guarantee from you, Minister for Planning, that you will not use your power and call this in because they want some certainty in their lives.
They are quite happy for the project to proceed. They are happy for it to proceed in Hume; they are happy to have a proper-sized power station to the south. Again, I note that the Chief Minister got all cranky and upset when we discussed Treasury last night. He said, “Nobody’s talking about the centrepiece of the budget, the billion-dollar infrastructure plan.” We had all talked about it, but he had not listened. He refuses to listen. He does not listen; he does not hear what people are saying. For five years, the people of Canberra have not had a second source of power in the ACT. Something that was identified very rapidly after the bushfire emergency of 2003 was that we needed another secure line of power. TransGrid is bringing it to the border, but what is the Chief Minister doing? We have waited five years for this, and for the peaking station which would give us that security—five years.
In the space of three or four weeks—on 27 May, a month ago today—we discovered that we did not need a peaking station on this site and that we could shift the whole project to Williamsdale. It is a miracle; there is a God after all! It is blessed. Power will be delivered through this farm that we found at Williamsdale, which we are about to process and go ahead with. It is another half-formed idea which, I have to say, I think has considerable merit. Mr Barr and I had this conversation about Williamsdale. I warned him about Williamsdale and about who he should talk to. Is that not true, Mr Barr? We had this conversation that, logically, that is where it would go.
It is great that it will produce 500 megawatts, if that is what is required. In my briefings from ActewAGL I was told that, on an average day two or three years ago, we were using something like 380 megawatts. So a 500-megawatt power station sounds like the right amount that would supply the ACT into the future and certainly
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