Page 3228 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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the potential future cost increases, except back in 2008 when the ICRC and Actew agreed that the $145 million cost of the dam might increase by 30 per cent. Those figures were given to and accepted by the community and, I might say, the ICRC in good faith. But that good faith has not been rewarded.
The final announcement of the cost of the enlarged Cotter Dam was $363 million and for the Murrumbidgee to Googong pipeline, $150 million. There have been lots of excuses for the final cost increases, one of which was that the number of cost elements had not been included in earlier estimates. One of those related to profit margins, one of the most fundamental elements of projecting costs. We have heard issues about the behaviour of Actew when negotiating with landowners in New South Wales for easement through their properties for the Murrumbidgee to Googong pipeline. I expect and I think most members in this place would expect that, when ACT-owned corporations negotiate and deal with people in and around the ACT, they would behave as exemplary corporate citizens. I will not comment on whether all of these stories are entirely factual, but the research that I have done gives me some concern about the behaviour of Actew.
There seems to be a lack of transparency of process. Questions have been hedged, and the non-answers continue to cause me legitimate concern. Even papers prepared for the Actew Corporation board—the decision maker for the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars on these projects—have been brought into question by the misuse of technical language. In this context, we even heard another new technical term the other day, which only serves to create more confusion.
A further illustration of the lack of transparency is the delivery of FOI documents. Recently I made an FOI request following the announcement in the media in late April about the cost of repairs to the holding tanks at the Stromlo water treatment works. I recognise that this is not directly associated with the major water security projects, but it serves to illustrate the transparency issues that we have been facing here in the Assembly.
I made an FOI request and Actew came to me and said, “Actually, Mrs Dunne, we think that you’ve asked for a horrendous number of documents, and could we chat about what it is that you actually want?” My staff and I attended a meeting with Actew officials where we described what it was that we wanted and assured Actew that we did not want to take away half a semitrailer load of documents. We had what I thought was quite an amicable discussion. We talked about the time line for delivering those documents, and I made an offer which I thought was fairly reasonable. At that stage we were at about day 27 of an FOI request, and I said, “Look, we’ve had this meeting today. We’ve clarified what it is that I am looking for. How about you do this: you write to me and confirm in your letter the proceedings of this meeting and I will consider that to be the beginning of the FOI process.”
It was agreed that the FOI clock would restart when I received a letter from Actew. It took 10 days almost for Actew to send that letter, and that was five weeks ago. The 30 days have well and truly passed, and the lack of transparency does give me reason to pause. Even when I thought that I was dealing in good faith with Actew, I was somewhat disappointed at the slowness of that. The lateness of these documents is in spite of meeting with officials and trying to sort out things and to act in good faith.
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