Page 2721 - Week 07 - Thursday, 3 July 2008
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year’s massive program. Working closely with industry providers will help to minimise peaks in demand, ensuring the most efficient use of available resources as the government delivers on its promises to the community.
The government has approached its capital works program in a planned and strategic manner. We have a proven track record in delivery, with record expenditure and record commitments. And, of course, as the Chief Minister highlights frequently in this place, the size of our capital works project, just for this year, of over $360 million-odd is equal to about four times larger than the infrastructure projects put in place by the previous government in their largest manifestation.
The scale and the size of infrastructure projects now being delivered by this government leave the Liberal Party and its time on the government benches in the shade, completely in the shade. But more important than that, their record is also one that must be questioned again and again. Not only was their infrastructure program so much smaller, it was poorly delivered.
Let me highlight a few of the examples. Let us not forget Bruce Stadium, which was a shambles from the start. Let us not forget Bruce Stadium—not properly scoped or funded. The list of faults is long—a dubious procurement process, budget blow-outs and of course the infamous illegal overnight loan. That is the history that the Liberal Party left us with as their largest single capital works project. That is the largest legacy that you, Mr Seselja, and your colleagues must live down—a dubious procurement process, budget blow-outs and an illegal overnight loan. That was their history on their so-called icon capital works project.
There are, of course, many other examples of the previous government’s incompetence with capital works delivery. The Impulse hangar for an airline that went out of business—let us not forget that one—the great hangar out at the Canberra Airport which sat empty for years is another great example of the previous government’s record when it came to capital works delivery.
I mentioned the ABS statistic a moment ago.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR CORBELL: Of course they do not like it. They do not like it, because they do not like it when their own faults are pointed out to them. They do not like it when they have to face up to the record of their colleagues, particularly the record of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Mr Smyth, and the shadow Attorney-General, Mr Stefaniak, when they were in government.
Mr Seselja: Tell us again how you saved so much money on the prison.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mrs Dunne): Mr Seselja, you are encouraging the minister to be disorderly.
MR CORBELL: And we will remind them again and again of their failings when it comes to infrastructure. People in glass houses should not throw stones.
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