Page 349 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 February 2010
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investment infrastructure programs, as taxpayers cannot have 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 these projects. 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 analysis of future capital works projects.
In the short time that has passed since the Liberal Party asked the Assembly to address this issue, the Greens are pleased to see that, on 7 December 2009, the Council of Australian Governments agreed to national criteria for capital city strategic planning systems, which will provide the platform to reshape our capital cities. The intention is that our cities will have strong, transparent, long-term plans in place to manage population and economic growth. These plans will address climate change, improve housing affordability and tackle urban congestion. COAG agreed that by 1 January 2012 all states will have in place plans that meet these criteria. The Greens will be very interested to hear from the ACT government how they are progressing with their planning, and trust that they will bring to the Assembly regular updates with details on the development of the ACT plan.
I would also like to take a moment in today’s MPI to explore the concerns that we have with the government’s relationship with contractors. It is a pity that a government that seeks to secure the prompt, cost-effective completion of projects and that seeks to pride itself on ethical practices in this jurisdiction would take such a hands-off approach to managing its contractors.
The Canberra community is not served when a government does not get far more involved when it contracts something out. It cannot simply walk away the minute a contract is signed. The government may stand up and protest that this is how business is done, that responsibility under the law passes on to the contractor managing the project. We readily admit that, under the law, this is the case. However, we believe that, in the community interest, government projects on public land should be held to a higher standard.
We believe that governments should lead by example. We have seen some complaints. The CFMEU raised problems associated with the safety of equipment being used to construct and modify the Gungahlin Drive extension. We had government ministers being unaware of delays to the completion of the AMC until the last minute. We see the government routinely blaming the contractors. Whilst it may be the contractors’ fault under the law, a more effective and hands-on oversight can prevent problems before they impact on projects and therefore on the community. We really want to see a greater involvement by government in these sorts of projects.
I would like to point out that we do have a lot of capital works that the government has on its program. Although the Treasurer stated that at 31 October 2009, $116 million of the $780 million program for that year had been spent, we are quite concerned about this large rollover of projects. I acknowledge that there were some industry reps who asked for that work plan to be staggered, but I also have noted that
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