Page 4224 - Week 11 - Thursday, 17 Sept 2009
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commercial consortia like this one will use to build an estimate of cost? Large-scale projects such as the dam, which operate over long periods of time, remind us that there is an increased need to assess risk comprehensively. The ACT would greatly benefit from reform of infrastructure decision making and governance arrangements, as current practice has the potential to merely waste taxpayers’ money.
The Greens are concerned about several aspects of the current process. We are concerned about the management and the timing of the expenditures and with the quality of the expenditures. We are troubled by the lack of disclosure of information about the evaluations undertaken for investment infrastructure programs, as the taxpayers cannot have any real confidence that the debts that are being incurred on major infrastructure projects will not simply require substantially higher taxes in the years to come—taxes not offset by a commensurate flow of benefits from the infrastructure projects undertaken. We are also sceptical about the argument that we must assume that the eventual project cost is usually greater than the total approved project cost; so we will be insisting that government conduct careful and rigorous cost-benefit analyses of future capital works projects.
I do take on board Mr Hargreaves’s comments and we do welcome the reintroduction of quarterly reports on major infrastructure projects and we will look forward to looking at those in close detail.
We need infrastructure that enhances the ability to deliver good services and support economic activity, and the Greens look forward to the government developing a sustainability assessment tool which can be applied to project and program funding proposals to deliver a clear picture of the advantages and disadvantages of major capital works expenditure in the ACT.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (4.35): The planning and delivery of infrastructure through sound financial management of capital works programs is an important function of government. The need to maintain and deliver infrastructure is an important element of service delivery to the community, and of course our capital works programs support economic activity and jobs in the region. So I thank the member for bringing forward this matter, which is of significant importance to the community and to this government.
Much has been made of late of the cost of major water security infrastructure projects, and in particular the enlarged Cotter Dam project and the Murrumbidgee to Googong transfer project. On this side of the Assembly we have openly acknowledged that the price tag for these projects, particularly that for the expanded Cotter Dam, is significantly higher than what we had at first been advised. What we have also been saying, however, is that even at this price these are sensible, prudent and economically responsible capital projects to deliver for the people of Canberra.
This was not a cost blow-out as those opposite would have the community believe. Rather, it was a natural increase in the costs of a significant and highly complex project, reflecting the growing understanding of exactly what was to be delivered and
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