Page 5 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 15 February 2011
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I will go through the three recommendations. The first was that the ACT government should make no final decision with regard to the whole-of-government office building project until the Standing Committee on Public Accounts has received a copy of the business case and the economic and environmental analysis, together with any relevant considerations, and has had time to consider this information and report to the ACT Legislative Assembly.
The second recommendation was that the ACT government provide the Standing Committee on Public Accounts with an assessment of the opportunity cost of the whole-of-government office building project against other significant infrastructure projects, such as the Majura Parkway, the starting of a light rail network, a new convention centre or a third major hospital.
The third recommendation was that the ACT government whole-of-government office accommodation strategy should be finalised and considered by the ACT Legislative Assembly prior to any final decision, or awarding of any contract, with regard to the whole-of-government office building project.
I would now like to talk a bit more about why the committee came to those three recommendations. I will now be talking more from my point of view rather than from the point of view of the committee as a whole, because obviously we all may have some different views on this.
From where I am sitting, the idea of co-locating the government offices does seem to be a sensible idea. What we are more concerned about is how they are doing it, not whether it is a good idea at all. The situation at present is that the ACT has the highest office vacancy rate in Australia. We have a 13.4 per cent vacancy rate throughout the ACT and over 15 per cent in Civic, and it does not look like this is going to improve any time soon. So it really seems quite bizarre that the government, which should be acting in the best interests of all of Canberra, would be seeking to add to the oversupply of offices by building a new, large, substantial office building in Civic.
I understand that this project was begun many years ago when there was an undersupply of office buildings, but I think that the government needs to look at the fact that this has really changed. The government needs to look at what the alternatives are now. I am aware of a couple of buildings which are close to the Legislative Assembly and which are expected to become vacant in the not-too-distant future—certainly before a new government office accommodation building could possibly be built.
The government has claimed that a new office building would be the most environmentally positive option. Obviously, we have asked that question. But it has not really given any life-cycle analysis of a comparison with refurbishing an existing well-located building. It has just said that it would be better than some of the buildings that it currently has. And I am sure that statement is true. But what I am not sure about is whether it has really looked at what the alternatives are.
Just across the road from us, the private sector is currently refurbishing the old ActewAGL building. That, I believe, is targeting a 4.5 NABERS rating. And there are
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